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* 


OUR 

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 





OUR 


SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 


THROUGH 


FRANCE and ITALY 





BY 


JOSEPH & ELIZABETH ROBINS 
PENNELL 


A NEW EDITION 
WITH APPENDIX 


T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDO 
THE CENTURY CO., UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK 






- 










> 


































% 



t 








PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 


O UR great ambition when we first set out 
on our tricycle, three years ago, was to 
ride from London to Rome. We did not then 
know exactly why we wanted to do this, nor do 
we now. The third part of the journey was 
“ ridden, written, and wrought into a work ” 
before the second part was begun; and, more¬ 
over, when and where we could not ride with 
ease—across the Channel and over the Alps, for 
example—we went by boat. and train. In our 
simplicity we thought by publishing the story of 
our journey, we could show the world at large, 
and perhaps Mr. Ruskin in particular, that the 
oft-regretted delights of travelling in days of coach 
. and post-chaise, destroyed on the coming of the 
railroad, were once more to be had by means of 
tricycle or bicycle. We can only hope that critic 
and reader are not, like Mr. Ruskin, prepared to 
spend all their best “ bad language ” “ in reproba¬ 
tion of bi-tri-and-4-5-6 or 7-cycles,” and that the 

riding 


[ Vi ] 

riding we found so beautiful will not to them, as 
to him, be but a vain wriggling on wheels. We 
also thought we might prove to the average cycler 
how much better it is to spend spare time and 
money in making Pilgrims’ Progresses and Senti¬ 
mental Journeys than in hanging around race¬ 
tracks. However that may be, we have at length 
accomplished the object of our riding, and that is 
the great matter after all. As to future rides and 
records, if we make any, it is our intention to for 
ever keep them to ourselves, and so—spare the 
public. 


Preface 


PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 


/ ~J" A ANDEM tricycling, like Mr. Laurence 
Sterne’s graveyard, has virtually disap¬ 
peared. But the pleasures of cycling are so all- 
enduring that we venture to issue a new edition 
of Our Sentimental Journey. 

J. & E. R. P. 


14 Buckingham St., Strand, 
March 27, 1893. 


Dedication. 






2DeMcation* 


TO 

LAURENCE STERNE, Esq., 

&c. &c. &c. 


London, Jan. 2 rf , 1888. 

Dear Sir,— 

We never should have ventured to 
address you, had we not noticed of late that Mr. 
Andrew Lang has been writing to Dead Authors, 
not one of whom—to our knowledge—has taken 
offence at this liberty. Encouraged by his example, 
we beg leave to dedicate to you this history of our 
journey, laying it with the most respectful humility 
before your sentimental shade, and regretting it is 
without that charm of style which alone could 
make it worthy. 

And as, in our modesty, we would indeed be 
unwilling to trouble you a second time, we must 
take advantage of this unhoped-for opportunity to 
add a few words of explanation about our journey 

in 



[ X ] 

in your honour. It is because of the conscientious 
fidelity with which we rode over the route made 
ever famous by you, that we have included our¬ 
selves in the class of Sentimental Travellers, of 
which you must ever be the incomparable head. 
To other sentiment, dear Sir, whatever we may 
have thought in the enthusiasm of setting out, we 
now know we can lay no claim. Experience has 
taught us that it depends upon the man himself, 
and not upon his circumstances or surroundings. 
Nowadays the manner of travelling through Trance 
and Italy is by rail, and mostly on Cook’s tickets, 
and chaises have become a luxury which we at 
least cannot afford. The only vehicle by which 
we could follow your wheel-tracks along the old 
post roads was our tricycle, an ingenious machine 
of modern invention, endeared to us, because 
without it Our Sentimental Journey would have 
been an impossibility. In these degenerate days, 
you, Sir, we are sure, would prefer it to a railway 
carriage, as little suited to your purposes as to those 
of Mr. Ruskin—an author whose rare and racy 
sayings you would no doubt admire were you 
still interested in earthly literature. Besides, in a 
tandem, with its two seats, there would be no¬ 
thing to stir up a disagreeable sensation within 
you. You would still have a place for “ the lady.” 

Because 


I *i ] 

Because it was not possible to follow you in 
many ways, we have spared no effort to be faithful 
in others. We left out not one city which you 
visited, and it was a pleasure to learn that the 
world is still as beautiful as you found it, though 
to-day most men of culture care so little for what 
is about them, they would have us believe all 
beauty belongs to the past. However, it will be 
gratifying to you, who did not despise fame during 
your lifetime, to know that you are one of the 
men of that past who have not wholly died.—And 
again, dear Sir, as it was your invariable custom 
to borrow the thoughts and words of any writer 
who particularly pleased you — a custom your 
enemies have made the most of—we have not 
hesitated to use any pictures of other men, or any 
_ descriptions and expressions in your works, that 
seemed appropriate to the record of our journey. 
More honest than you, Sir, we have given credit to 
the artists, that their names may enhance the value 
of our modest offering. But as you will recognise 
your own words without our pointing them out, we 
have not even put them into quotation marks, an 
omission which you of all men can best appreciate. 

In conclusion : we think you may be pleased to 
hear something of your last earthly resting-place 
in the burying-ground belonging to St. George’s, 

Hanover 


[ xii ] 

Hanover Square. We made a pilgrimage to it 
but a few Sundays ago. Though your grave was 
neglected until the exact spot is no longer known, 
the stone, since raised near the place , is so often 
visited that, though it stands far from the path, a 
way to it has been worn in the grass by the feet 
of the many, who have come to breathe a sigh or 
drop a tear for poor Yorick. We scarce know 
if it will be any comfort to you in your present 
life, to learn that this cemetery is a quiet, restful 
enclosure, near as it is to the carriages and ’busses 
about Marble Arch and the Socialist and Salva¬ 
tionist gatherings in Hyde Park. In the spring 
it is pretty as well, laburnums shading the door¬ 
way of the little chapel, through which one can 
see from the street the grey gravestones that dot 
the grass, and seem no less peaceful than the 
sheep in the broad fields of the park opposite. 

We have the honour to be, dear Sir, your most 
obedient and most devoted and most humble 
servants, 

JOSEPH PENNELL. 

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. 


Contents. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Our Sentimental Journey.15 

Calais.19 

By a Fair River and over Terrible Mountains 28 

The Boarding-House of NetjchAtel ... 42 

The South Wind .46 

Montreuil.. . -52 

Nampont .54 

A City in Mourning.57 

Faithful Abbeville.67 

Crushed Again .69 

A By-Road. 7 ° 

Amiens. 77 

Wind, Poplars, and Plains .84 

The Commercial Gentlemen of St. Just . . 91 

Through the Rain.100 

An English Landlady .107 

Over the Pav£ . 112 








[ x * v ] 


i*a(;e 


Paris.115 

A Talk about M. Millet and Mr. Stevenson, 

and from Mr. Pennell.120 

In the Forest.135 

Fontainebleau.140 

Through a Fair Country.143 

Montargis.149 

How we Fought the Wind from Montargis 

to Cosne. 154 

A Good Samaritan.163 

By the Loire.170 

The Bourbonnais.180 

Moulins.186 

The Bourbonnais Again.189 

With the Wind.197 

Lyons.209 

The Autumn Manoeuvres.213 

Vienne.218 

The Feast of Apples.222 

Rives.232 


Appendix . 


2 35 











OUR 

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, 

&c. &c. 

“ > | V HE roads,” said I, “ are better in 
A France.” 

“You have ridden in France?” said J-, 

turning quick upon me with the most civil sarcasm 
in the world. 

“ Strange ! ” quoth I, arguing the matter with 
him, “you have so little faith in cyclers that you 
cannot take their word for it.” 

“Tis but a three hours’ journey to Calais and 

French roads,” said J-; “why not ride over 

them ourselves ? ” 


—So, 






[ 16 J 

—So, giving up the argument, not many days 
later we put up our flannels and our ulsters, our 



“Sterne” and our “Baedeker,” a box of etching 
plates, and a couple of note-books— 
“ Our old cycling suits,” said I, darning 
a few rents, “ will do ”—took our seats 
in a third-class railway carriage at Hol- 
born Viaduct; and the Calais-Douvres 
sailing at half-past twelve that same 
morning, by two we were so incontest¬ 
ably in France, that a crowd of shout¬ 
ing, laughing, jesting, noisy Frenchmen 
in blue blouses were struggling up the gang-plank 

with 











'[ T 7 ] 

with the tricycle, which at Dover half the number 
of stolid Englishmen in green velveteen had de¬ 
livered into the hands of the sailors.—But before 
we had set foot in the French dominions we had 



been treated by the French with an inhospitality 
which, had it not been for the sentiment of our 
proposed ride, would have made us forget the ex¬ 
cellence of the roads beckoning us to its coast, and 

have sent us back in hot haste to England.- 

» “To 







[ i8 ] 

“ To pay a shilling tax for the privilege of 

landing in France/’ cried J-, fresh from his 

“Sterne,” “by heavens, gentlemen, it is not well 
done! And much does it grieve me ’tis the law¬ 
givers and taxmakers of a sister Republic whose 
people are renowned for courtesy and politeness, 
that I have thus to reason with.” 

—But I confess we were much worse treated by 
the English, who seemed as unwilling to lose our 
tricycle as the French were to receive us.- 

“Eight shillings to carry it from London to 

Dover; ’tis no small price,” said J-, putting 

the change in his purse. “ But fifteen from Dover 
to Calais, as much as we pay for our two tickets, 
tax and all, I tell you ’tis monstrous ! To seize 
upon an unwary cycler going forth in search of 
good roads, and make him pay thus dearly for 
sport taken away from England-ungenerous ! ” 


—But we had scarce begun our sentimental 
journey. 



Calais, 







CALAIS. 


OW, before I quit Calais, a travel-writer 



-L ^1 would say, it would not be amiss to give 
some account of it.---But while we were there 
we were more concerned in seeking the time 
and occasion for sentiment than in studying the 
history and monuments of the town. If you would 
have a short description of it, I know of none 
better than that of Mr. Tristram Shandy, who 
wrote without even having seen by daylight the 
places he described.—The church with the steeple, 
the great Square, the town-house, the Courgain, 
are all there still, and I fancy have changed but 
little in a hundred years. 

To travellers eager for sentiment, nothing could 
have been more vexatious than the delay at the 
Custom-House, where the tandem was weighed, its 
wheels measured, and its number taken; and we 
were made to deposit fifty francs, three-fourths of 
which sum would be returned if we carried the 
machine out of France within three months, the 


remaining 


*9 


[ 20 ] 

remaining fourth going to pay the Government for 
our wear and tear of French roads.—There was 
another delay at the Hotel Meurice while a room 
was found for us, and a femme-de-chambre insisted 
upon Madeline's going to bed at once, because of 
the terrible wind that had prostrated two English 
ladies. But, finally rid of officials and femmes-de- 
chambre, we walked out on the street. 

Now was the moment for an occasion for senti¬ 
ment to present itself. 

It is a rude world, I think, when the wearer of a 



cycling suit (even if it be old and worn) cannot go 
forth to see the town but instantly he is stared at 
and ridiculed by the townspeople. For our part, 

being 





V 























































[ 22 ] 

being but modest folk, we keenly felt the glances 
and smiles of the well-dressed men and women on 
the Rue Royale. To find a quiet place we walked 
from one end of the town to the other; through 
the Square where Mr. Shandy would have put up 
his fountain, and where a man at an upper window 
yelled in derision, and a woman in a doorway 
below answered- 

“What wouldst thou have? ? Tis the English 
fashion.” 

—Down a narrow street, where, “For example!” 

cried a little young lady in blue, laughing in J-’s 

very face—for we had turned full in front on a 
group of girls—while a child clapped her hands 
at sight of him, and a black dog snapped at his 
stockings. And then up a second street, that led 
to the barracks, where two soldiers on duty put 
down their guns and fairly shrieked. Into the 
Cathedral children followed us, begging, “Won 
sous, sare! won sous, sare! ” until we longed to 
conceal our nationality. At its door a poor wretch 
of a fisherman, who had looked upon the wine 
when it was red, came to our side to tell us in 
very bad English that he could speak French.— 
There was no peace to be had in the town. 

If there was one thing we hoped for more than 
another, it was to see a monk, the first object of 


our 




[ 2 3 ] 

our master’s sentiment in France; and, strange as 




it may seem, our hope was actually fultilled before 
the afternoon was over.— 

On the outskirts of the 
city, where we had taken 
refuge from ridicule, we 
saw a brown hooded and 
cloaked Franciscan, and 
in our joy started to over¬ 
take him. But he walked 
quite as fast across the yellow-flowered sand-dunes 

towards 





towards St. Pierre. Had he known what was -in 
our hearts, I think he too 
would have introduced 
himself with a little story 
of the wants of his con¬ 
vent and the poverty of 
his order. 

We soon discovered that 
it was a fete day in Calais, 
and that a regatta was 
being held down by the 
pier.—When we were there 
three Frenchmen in jockey- 
caps were pulling long out-riggers against the wind 


over a chopping sea. 


Looking on was a great 
crowd, 


[ ] 

crowd, sad-coloured in the grey afternoon light, for 
all its holiday dress, but touched here and there 
with white by the caps—their wide fluted borders 
blowing back on the breeze—of the peasant 
women. 

As every one who has passed in the Paris train 
knows, at the entrance of the 
town is the town-gate, a heavy 
grey pile, with high-gabled 
roof and drawbridge, the 
chains of which hang on 
either side the archway. Now 
that Dessein’s was gone, 

J- declared that it in¬ 

terested him more than any¬ 
thing else in Calais, since 
Hogarth had painted it; and 
he began an elaborate study. 

It was not easy work. To 
the people in their holiday 
humour the combination of 
knee-breeches and sketch¬ 
book was irresistibly comic. 

But he went bravely on. I have rarely seen him 
more conscientious over a sketch. Indeed he was 
so pleased with this gate that later, when, at the 
end of a street, we came to another, under a tall 

turretcd 





[ 26 ] 

turreted house, and leading into a large courtyard, 
nothing would do but he must have that as well.— 
In a word, he was in a mood to draw as many 
gates as he could find; but by this time at the 
Hotel Meurice dinner was on the table. 

It was not until many weeks after, when we 
were back in London, that, on looking into the 

matter, J- discovered that Hogarth painted, 

not the gate facing the sea, but that at the other 
end of the town—I verily believe the only gate in 
all Calais of which he did not get a sketch. 

On the whole the afternoon was a disappoint¬ 
ment. In little more than a single hour our 
Master had grasped seventeen chapters of adven¬ 
tures. In thrice that time we, with hearts inte¬ 
rested in everything, and eyes to see, had met with 
a paltry few, easily disposed of in as many lines.— 
To add vexation to vexation, at the table d’hote we 
learned from the waiter, that though the old inn 
had long since ceased to exist, there was a new 
Dessein’s in the town, where, for the name’s sake, 
it would have been more appropriate to begin our 
journey. Had we carried a “Baedeker” for Nor¬ 
thern as well as Central France, we should have 
been less ignorant. 

We left the champions of the regatta toasting 
each other at the next table, and went into the 

salon 



[ 2 7 ] 

salon to study a chapter of our sentimental guide¬ 
book in preparation for the first day’s ride. But an 
American was there before us, and began, instead, 
a talk about Wall Street and business, Blaine and 
torchlight processions. As Americans do not travel 
to see Americans, we retired to our room. 


•'-fat 



By 




BY A FAIR RIVER AND OVER 
TERRIBLE MOUNTAINS. 


T HE milkman, fol¬ 
lowed by his 
goats, was piping 
through the town, and 
the clock over the gera¬ 
niums in the court 
was just striking eight, 
as we disposed of our 
bill—not without numer¬ 
ous complaints, in which 
every one but some 
English tourists joined 
—and wheeled the tri¬ 
cycle out to the street.—Though the old motherly 

femme-de-cham ^ 



28 



[ *9 ] 


femme-de-chambre had come to see us ride, and 
stopped a friend to share this pleasure, and though 
there were many faces at the dining-room windows, 
the sight of the pave, or French paving, kept us 

from mounting. We walked, J- pushing the 

tricycle, to the Place , past the grey town-hall, into 
the Rue Royale. We had been told that where 
La Fleur’s hotel once stood a museum was being 
built. To sentimental travellers, perhaps, this 
destruction of old landmarks was as worthy of 
tears as a dead donkey.—But it is easier to weep 
in a private post-chaise than in the open streets. 

We got through the town without trouble, but 
we could not ride even after we went round the 
city-gate which Hogarth did paint, and to which we 
gave but a passing glance. It was only beyond 
the long, commonplace, busy suburb of St. Pierre 
that the pave ended and the good road began. 

The morning was cool, the sky grey with heavy 
clouds, and the south wind we were soon to dread 
was blowing softly. It seemed a matter of course, 
since we were in France, that we should come out 
almost at once on a little river. It ran in a long 
line between reeds, towards a cluster of red-roofed 
cottages, and here and there fishermen sat, or 
stood, on the banks. When it forsook its straight 
course, the road and the street-car track from 

Calais 



[ 3 ° ] 

Calais went winding with it,—grassy plains, where 
cows and horses wandered, stretching seaward on 
the right. In front we looked to a low range of 
blue hills, that gradually took more definite shape 
and colour as we rode. They were very near 
when we came to Guignes, a silent, modest little 
village, for all its royal associations and memories 
of the “ Field of the Cloth of Gold.” On its 
outskirts old yellow houses rose right on the 



river’s edge; and when we passed, a girl in blue 
skirt stood in one doorway, sending a bright re¬ 
flection into the grey water,.$ind in another an old 
man peacefully smoked his pipe, taking it from 
his mouth to beg we would carry packets for 
him to Paris. Behind one cottage, in the garden 
among the apple-trees, was a large canal boat, like 
a French Rudder Grange. Beyond, high steep- 
roofed houses faced upon the street, and the 

stream 



[ 3i ] 


stream was lined with many barges.—But just here 
we turned from river and street-car track to walk 
to the other end of the town, over pave and up 
a steep hill, where we were told by a blushing 
young man, in foreign English, that we had but 
to follow the diligence then behind us if we would 
reach Marquise. 

Though we thought this a rare jest at the time, 
we carried his advice out almost to the letter.—We 



had come to the terrible mountains for which we 
had been prepared in Calais. It is at this point, 
according to Mr. Ruskin, that France really begins, 
the level stretch we first crossed being virtually 
but part of Flanders. Tis a bad beginning, from 
a cycler’s ideal. For many miles I walked—and 

even J-at times—along the white road, barren 

of the poplars one always expects in France, over 
the rolling treeless moors, where we were watched 

out 



[ 32 ] 

out of sight by gleaners, their white caps and dull 



blue skirts and sacks in pale relief against a grey 
blue-streaked sky; and by ploughmen, 
whose horses, happier than they, ate 
their dinners as they worked.—Always 
to the north of the moorland was the 
grey sea-line, and farther still the white 
cliffs of England. 

Sometimes I rode, for each tiny 
village nestled in a valley df its own, 
giving us a hill to coast as well as to 
climb. There were occasional wind¬ 
mills in the distance; and close to the 
road large farm-houses and barns, with high slop¬ 
ing red roofs and huge troughs in front, where we 
knew cattle would come in the twilight and horses 

would 



t 33 ] 

would be watered in the morning. And when 
Calais, with smoking chimneys, was far behind 
and below, we came to^ black crosses by the way- 
side and better manners among the people. The 
peasants now wished us good day. 



At this early stage there was nothing we looked 
for less than trouble with the tricycle. It had 
been carefully put in order by the manufacturers 
before we left London. But now already the 
luggage-carrier loosened, and swung around on the 
backbone of the machine. Do what we would, we 
c could 



[ 34 ] 

could not keep it straight again. In Marquise we 
bought a leather strap, in hopes to right it, and 
there also ate our lunch.--From the window of 
the estaminet we could see that the men and boys 
who came up to examine the tricycle never once 
touched it, while a man with a cart of casks, 
though it was in his way, rather than disturb it, 
stopped a little farther down the street, and rolled 
the casks along the pavement. Inside the estaminet , 
the brisk, tidy woman who cooked and served our 
coffee and omelette, kept talking of the weather 
and France and the tricycle, and what a wise 
manner of travelling was ours. My faith! from 
the railway one sees nothing. 

But, indeed, for hours afterwards we saw as little 
as if we had been in a railroad train. We were 
conscious only of the great hills to be climbed, and 
of our incessant trouble with the luggage-carrier. 
The new strap did not mend matters. Every few 
minutes the carrier with the bag took an ugly 
swing to one side.—We .never began *to enjoy a 
coast, we never got fairly started on an up-grade, 
that it did not force us to stop and push it straight. 
And then the lamp in its turn loosened, and every 
few kilometres had to be hammered into place. 

The other incidents of that long afternoon I 
remember merely because of their association with 

hills. 


[ 35 ] 

hills. It was at the top of one, where I arrived 
breathless, we had our first view of the dome and 
monument of Boulogne; it was at the bottom of 
another that we came to the pave of Wimille; it 

was half-way on a third, up which J-worked 

slowly, standing up on the pedals and leaning far 
over to grasp the front handle bars, while I walked, 
that I was stopped by an Englishman and English¬ 
woman.— 



“Oh,” said the man, as he watched J-, 

“you’re making a walking tour together, I sup¬ 
pose ? ” 

“ We’re riding ! ” cried I, aghast. 

“ Oh! ” he exclaimed, “ I see; you ride by 
turns.” 


—I 



[ 36 ] 

—I was so stupefied by his impudence or ignor¬ 
ance that at first I could say nothing. Then,- 

“We ride together,” said I; “and we’ve come 
from England, and we’re going to Paris and Lyons, 
into Savoy, and over the Mont Cenis pass.” 

—And with that I turned my back and left 
them, open-mouthed, in the middle of the road. 

But their unconscious sarcasm had its sting. 
The thought that, if these hills went on, I might 
really have to walk half-way to Italy almost brought 
sentiment to an end.- 

“ Boulogne ! and ’tis but half-past three. We’ll 
go on,” said J-. 

—As we did not even enter the town, I cannot 
of my own knowledge say if there is anything in it 
worth seeing. But from the outside we learned 
that it has a picturesque old city-gate under the 
shadow of the dome; that the people are polite, 
and some of the men wear baggy blue breeches; 
and that close to the grim grey walls is an unpaved 
tree-lined boulevard which'is very good riding. It 
led to a down-grade which a woman called a terrible 
mountain , though she thought it might b.e “good 
for you others .” 

Only the highest ranges are mountains to an 
Italian, but to a Frenchman the merest hillock is 
une montagne terrible.—The hill outside of Boulogne 


was 






what there is between Boulogne and Pont-de- 
Brique, my only answer would be pave! We had 
heard of it before ever we landed in France, but its 
vileness went beyond our expectation. The worst 

of 


was steep, but unrideable only on account of the 
pave. And, oh! the pave that afternoon! We 
went up pave and down pave , and over long level 
stretches of pave , until, if any one were to ask me 


[ 38 ] 

of it was, that for the rest of our journey we were 
never quite rid of it. To be sure it was only once 
in a long while we actually rode over it, but then 
we had always to be on the look-out. We came to 
it in every town and village; we found bits of it in 
lonely country districts; it lay in wait for us on hill¬ 
sides. The French roads without the pave are the 
marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order Mark 
Twain calls them. If they are not jack-planed and 
sand-papered, they are at least swept every day. 
With the pave , they are the ruin of a good machine 
and a better temper. And yet, all things con¬ 
sidered, France is the cycler’s promised land. 

By the time we reached Pont-de-Brique the 
luggage-carrier hung on by one screw. Fortunately 

we found a carpenter in a cafe, and he and J- 

went to work.—In the meantime I saw, under the 
shade of a clump of trees, a green cart with win¬ 
dows and chimney, a horse grazing near by, and a 
man and woman sitting in front of a fire kindled 

on the grass. I walked towards the cart.- 

“ Kushto divvus , Pal te Pen ” (“ Good-day, 
brother and sister ”), said I. 

“ What ? ” asked the woman, without looking up 
from the tin-pan she was mending. 

“Kushto divvus,” said I, louder; adding, “Me 
shorn une Romany chi ” (“I’m a Gipsy”). 

“ Comment ? ” 












[ 4° ] 

“Comment?” she repeated peevishly. “I do 
not understand you.” 

—The man still tinkered at his pots. 

I chaffed them in my best Romany, but they 
took no further heed. I tried French. I said I 
was a Gipsy come from over the seas, with news of 
their brothers in America.- 

“ But we’re not Gipsies,” said they; “ we live in 
Boulogne, and we’re busy.” 

—I declare I never was so snubbed in my life! 

’Twas but six quarters of an hour on foot to 
Neuchatel, the carpenter told us.—The road in the 
late afternoon was full of fine carriages and shabby 
carts; and in sight of Neuchatel we passed men 
and women going home from work. We asked 
one man if there was an inn in the town.- 

“ Il-y-a-douze” he answered, with great effort, 
and hurried on, so that we had not time to tell him 
we too could speak English. 

We wondered so small a town should be so rich 
in inns. But douze , it seemed, was the English 
way of saying deux. A woman standing in the 
first doorway assured us there were but two—one 
opposite the church, and another, the Pas de Cceur 
—we understood her to say, around the corner.— 
At the foot of the hill we found the first, with 
Boarding-House in large black letters on its newly 

whitewashed 





whitewashed walls* As there never was any senti¬ 
ment in a Boarding-House except in Dr. Holmes’ 
books, or any cheapness in a foreign hotel with an 
English sign, we looked for the other inn. But 
when we had wheeled up the street and down 
the street, until its want of heart became ours, we 
gave up the search and returned to the Boarding- 
House . 



The 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE OF 
NEUCHATEL. 



FAT old landlady received us, after a glance 


at the tricycle had reassured her that to 
take us in did not mean to be taken in herself. 
She promised us dinner at six, and a room in 
the course of the evening. In the cafe , or outer 
kitchen, where she gave us chairs, an elderly Cin¬ 
derella was blacking boots and peeling potatoes 
in the fireplace; a pretty girl was carrying tumblers 
and clean linen to a near room; another, with a 
big baby in her arms, gossiped with neighbours 
on the front steps. The landlady hurried back 
to the small kitchen, through the open door of 
which we could see her bustling about among the 
pots and pans. 

Presently a little man, in white trousers and 
brown velveteen waistcoat, wandered in from the 
stable-yard to clink glasses with a friend at the 
bar, and drink without pause two mugs of beer and 


42 


one 


[ 43 ] 

one glass of brandy. Then he gave us a dance 
and a song. 

And then there came trooping into the room 
huntsmen with dogs and guns, and servants bear¬ 
ing long poles strung with rabbits, and three 
ladies in silks and gold chains and ribbons, and 
a small boy. The huntsmen were given cognac 
and absinthe; the ladies were led away through a 
narrow passage, but they returned in a minute, 
with pitchers which they themselves filled from a 
barrel near the kitchen-door. 

These were people of quality, it was plain. They 
had come in a carriage, and a private dressing- 
room was found for them. But for us, who had 
arrived on a machine we worked ourselves, a basin 
was set in the fireplace, where we too made a toilet 
as best we could.—At seven the landlady, with 
upraised hands, rushed from the kitchen to say 
that- 

“ Mon Dieu ! the mutton cutlets Monsieur and 
Madame ordered have gone like a dream. What 
is to be done ? ” 

—What, indeed? And all the time we had 
supposed her preparations were for us. 

A little later, when dinner still seemed a remote 
possibility, in searching for our bag which had 
been carried off, I came by chance upon a dining¬ 


room 



[ 44 ] 

room where the cloth was laid and the table was 
gay with lights and flowers. But when I hurried 

back with the good -news to J- he was less 

hopeful'.- 

“ We had to wash in the fireplace,” said he. 

—We were not long in doubt. The ladies and 
the huntsmen were ushered into the dining-room. 
The pretty girl in her neat apron carried in the 
soup, the fish, the cutlets. We could hear a 
pleasant clattering of plates and the sound of 
laughter. But still we sat in our humble corner.— 
Seldom have we felt class distinctions so bitterly. 
At last the landlady, very warm and red from the 
kitchen fire, with the baby in her arms, bade us 
follow her into a large dark room on the farther 
side of the ^7/2-kitchen. There she laid a modest 
omelette on a rough wooden table guiltless of 
cloth, and we ate it by the light of one candle. 
The huntsmen’s servants packed the rabbits and 
drank coffee on our left; on our right a little 
tailor stitched away at brown, velveteens. Villagers 
strolled in and out, or played billiards; and a 
stray dog, unbidden, sat upright and begged at our 
side.—We cut but a poor figure in the Boarding- 
House of Neuchatel. 

We should have gone to bed at once, so tired 
were we after the pave and the hills, but the sheets 


were 




[ 45 ] 

were not yet ironed. It was not until the kitchen 
clock struck ten that we were shown into a small 
closet where there was a bed, and promised a 
towel in the morning.--Before we went to sleep we 
heard, between the screams of the baby, the rain 
falling softly on the roof, to fill us with fears for 
the morrow’s ride. 


The 


THE SOUTH WIND. 


HE next day began well. Without, the rain 



A had stopped, and the morning was bright 
and clear. Within, unfavourable social distinc¬ 
tions had ceased, since we were the only guests. 
If we were slighted at dinner, we were over¬ 
whelmed with attention at breakfast. The interest 
of the household centred upon us. Nothing 
was talked of but our journey. Every one was 
eager to advise. We must go here, we must go 
there; we must keep by the sea, we must turn 
inland; and, above all, declared the little tailor, 
who still stitched away, we must not rest until we 
rode into Paris. Ah, what a city it was! He 
knew it well; but, my faith! a man must work to 
pay for life in the capital. He could see by the 
portfolio that Monsieur was an artist; no doubt he 
was on his way there to make great pictures.—We 
thought we could not please him better than to 
tell him in our country Paris was called the Para¬ 
dise of good Americans. We were right. He 


made 


46 


t 47 ] 

made us a low bow, as if the compliment had 
been personal. 

It was easy not to be bewildered by conflicting 
directions, since we were predetermined not to be 
influenced by them. The fairest promise of good 
roads, enchanting country, and picturesque towns 
could not have turned us a hair’s breadth from 
the route we had settled upon. The fact is, 
the question was one of sentiment, and at that 
stage of our enthusiasm where sentiment was con¬ 
cerned we were inflexible.—Mr. Sterne, on his way 
to Amiens and Paris, passed by Montreuil. To 
Montreuil, therefore, we must go. 

A good strong breeze blew from the south. Out 
at sea it swept the white foam before it, and above, 
it lashed the clouds into fantastic shapes. It 
caught the skirts of the gleaners on their way to 
the yellow fields, and of the women going towards 
Neuchatel, and held them back at every step. 
But we were saved the struggle while we rode 
eastward. Now we were on a level with the sea, 
looking at it across grassy plains and sandy 
stretches; and now it lay far below, and we saw 
it over the, tree-tops on the hillside; again it was 
hidden by high dunes and dense pine-groves. 
Little villages lay in our way : Dannes, with pretty, 
shady road leading into it and out of it; another, 

for 


[ 48 ] 

for us nameless, with thatched white cottages, 
standing in a dreary waste, a broad inlet to one 
side. And at last a short ride between young 
green trees brought us to Etaples, a town of low 
white houses built close to the shore, and at the 
same time to the end of the day’s easy riding. 

Our only memories of Etaples are unpleasant. 
We there bought a bottle of bad oil for a good 
price. When we left Neuchatel the machine 
needed oiling; but the top of our oil-can had not 



been made to lit, and when we opened the tool- 
bag the can was in the oil instead of the oil in 
the can.—After using the poor stuff sold uS by 
a shoemaker, the tricycle ran even more heavily. 
This was unfortunate, for after Etaples the road 
left the sea and started for the south. There was 
nothing to be done but to put our heads down 
and to work as if we were record-making.—I do 

not 




♦ 



l) 







[ 50 ] 

not think it wrong, merely because the wind blew 
in our faces almost every day of our sentimental 
journey, therefore to say the prevalent winds in 
France are from the south; but indeed all the 
trees thereabouts bend low towards the north, to 
confirm this assertion. 

Thus we rode on between fields bare as the 
moors; through lovely park-like country; by little 
shady rivers, where ducks were swimming in the 
deep-green water; by tiny villages; by little 
churches, grey and old ; by crosses, some split and 
decaying; through long avenues, with poplars on 
either side; by hills, the ploughman on the top 
strongly marked against the blue sky; and all the 
way the road was only a little worse than asphalt. 

It was noon, and school-children were running 
home to dinner when we reached Montreuil. 



There were no less than three kilometres of pave 
to be walked before we came into the town. We 
were further prepossessed against it because it has 
just enough character to stand upon a hill, instead 
of nestling in a hollow, as is the way with towns 

and 


[ ] 

and villages in this part of the country. What 
with the wind and the pave and the climb, we 
were so cast down that when by the city-gate, 
almost at the top of the hill, we saw a stone 
bearing the legend, “Two hundred kilometres to 
Paris,” we wondered if sentiment would carry us 
that far. 


Montreuil. 


M O N T R E U I L. 



HERE is not a town in all France which, in 


A my opinion, looks better in the map than 
Montreuil. I own it does not look so well in the 
guide-book, but when you come to see it, to be 
sure it looks most pitifully. 

There is promise of picturesqueness in a group 
of tumbled-down gabled houses at its entrance, 
and in a fine church doorway at one end of the 
Place where we lunched. But gables and doorway 
have been spared, I think, but to mislead the 
visitor with false hopes. The streets are lined 
with modern houses monstrously alike. The 
Grande Place is large enough to deserve its name, 
but as we saw it, it was forlornly empty, silent, and 
dull. The gaiety of Montreuil has gone with the 
fiddling and drum-beating of La Fleur. 

Despite its disadvantages, however, in the town 
where our Master compounded that little matter 
with the sons and daughters of poverty it was our 
duty to be sentimental. There was no question 


of 


52 


[ 53 ] 

of travellers of our means and vehicle engaging a 
servant to fiddle and make splatter-dashes for us, 
even if another La Fleur could be produced. But 
if beggars sent in their claims, we could at least 
find in them the occasion of the first public act of 
our charity in France. Beggars, after a fashion, 
we did meet; for at once an old woman—a poor 
tattered soul—begged we would let her grandson 
J ules show us the way to a restaurant; and next a 
hatless man followed us around the Place to im¬ 
plore a visit to his hotel, where his wife could 
“ spik Inglis ”—a sound perhaps as worth money 
as the “ My Lord Angolis ” that won Mr. Sterne’s 
last sous. But our hearts were hardened against 
them, as his, too, might have been against those 
other miserables, had he not slept off the ill- 
humours of his journey to Montreuil. 

I think it was at Montreuil it first occurred to 
us that sentiment does not depend upon man’s 
will alone.—And so we got on our tricycle with no 
more ease than usual, but less, as the wind came 
howling over the plain to meet us. 

Note .—J was too lazy, and said the morn¬ 
ing was too hot to do anything but work the 
tricycle. 


Nam pont. 



NAM PONT. 

T HE road between Montreuil and Nampont 
was for us classic ground. Breathless¬ 
ness, because of the wind, before we had got a 
league, brought our career—like La Fleur’s—to a 



sudden stop. We then had time to see that the 
deathbed of the famous donkey lay in fair country. 

Near 


54 


[ 55 ] 

Near by two windmills turned their long arms 
swiftly. A sportsman banged away in the fields, 
and, to bring good-luck, two crows flew overhead. 
When we went on, the wind began to moderate, 
and 'by the time we reached Nampont it was 
making but a little noiseless noise among the 
leaves. 

We thought Nampont a pretty village, with its 
poplared canal flowing without turn or twist to the 



far horizon, and its long, wide street lined with low 
houses. The first we came to, that had a stone 
bench by the door and an adjoining court, we 
decided to be the post-house, in front of which 
the donkey’s master told his pathetic tale. We 
appealed to an old man just then passing. But 
he knew nothing of it, and there were so many 

other 




[ 5 6 ] 


other houses with stone seats and courts that we 
could not settle the matter to our satisfaction.— 


We were only cer¬ 
tain of the pav'e over 
which Mr. Sterne’s 
postillion set out in 
a full gallop that put 
him out of temper. 
Instead of gallop¬ 
ing, we walked, first 
refreshing ourselves 
with groseille , a 



harmless syrup, in a brand-new cafe at the end of 
the village street, the one sign of modern enterprise 
in Nampont. 

After this town, there was no sense of senti¬ 
mental duty to oppress us, since a little beyond it 
Mr. Sterne went to sleep, a sweet lenitive for evils, 
which Nature does not hold out to the cycler. 



i 


A 



A CITY IN MOURNING. 

T HE straight, poplared road to Abbeville still 
lay across a golden plain, with no interest 
save its beauty, here and there bounded by a 
row of trees, yellow haystacks standing out in 
bold relief against them; and here and there 



narrowed by dark woods, in front of which an old 
white-haired shepherd or little white-capped girl 
watched newly sheared sheep. Now and then the 
way led through small blue villages. There was 
Airon, where a large party of gleaners, old and 

young 


57 




[ 58 ] 


young men, women, boys, and girls, sitting by the 
wayside, jumped up of one accord and walked with 



us up the hill. And then came Nouvion, where 
we saw a fine old rambling yellow farm-house, over 
whose disreputably tilted front-door peered two 
grotesque heads, and where we had coffee in the 
village inn, sitting on the one dry spot in the 
flooded floor, and just escaping the mops and 
buckets of two women who'had raised the deluge. 

The hills we still had. To read the “Emblems 
of the Frontispiece ” in “ Coryate’s Crudities,” one 
would imagine that from Montreuil to Abbeville 
was one long endless descent. 

“ Here, not up Holdbourne, but down a steepe hill, 
Hee’s carried ’twixt Montrell and Abbeville.” 


But 



[ 59 ] 

But I remember many steep up-grades to be 
climbed beside that of Airon. 



Just about Nouvion the road was bad, because, 
so a friendly cantonnier said, there had been no 
rain for more than two months. He promised it 
would improve seven or eight kilometres farther 
on, and prepared us for a crowd in Abbeville, 
whither all the world had gone to take part in the 
funeral celebrations of Admiral Courbet, who by 
this hour of the afternoon was no doubt already 
buried.—A little later all the world seemed on its 
way home, and the road was full of carts, carriages, 
and pedestrians. It was no easy matter to steer 
between the groups on foot and the waggons driving 
sociably side by side. The crowd kept increasing, 


once 



[ 6 ° ] 

once in its midst a bicycler wheeling by to throw 
us a haughty stare. There were as many people 
on another straight poplar-lined road that crossed 
the Route Nationale. At this rate it was possible 
we should find no one left in the town, and the 
hotels, therefore, not more crowded than usual. 
So there was as much cheerful, unalloyed pleasure 
as Mr. Ruskin himself experienced—which he 
believes is not to be had from railway trains or 
cycles—in our getting into sight of Abbeville far 
below in the valley of the Somme, two square 
towers dominant over the clustered house-roofs. 

On the outskirts of the city we saw the cemetery, 
a little to our right. The funeral procession, with 
flags, banners, and crosses borne aloft, was about 
to return from the grave. We felt so out of 
keeping with its solemnity that, rather than wait 
on the sidewalk as it passed, we hurried on at 
once.—But there was no going fast. In a minute 
we were jolting on the pave again, and the street 
was more crowded than the road. All the world 
had but begun to go home. People walked on the 
pavement and in the street. Windows were filled 
with eager faces; benches and platforms in front 
of shops were still occupied. Houses were draped 
in black, flags hung here, there, and everywhere, 
and funeral arches were set up at short distances. 

Our 


[ 61 ] 

Our position was embarrassing. Try our best, 
we could not, unnoticed, make our way through 
the crowd. Every minute we had to call out to 
citizens or peasants in front to let us by. The 
people at the windows and on the benches, waiting 
idly to see the end of the day’s solemn show, at 
once caught sight of the tricycle. Do what we 
would, all eyes were turned towards it. And, to 
our horror, the funeral procession gained upon us. 
The chants of priests and acolytes were in our 
very ears. We jumped down and walked. But it 
was no use. In a few minutes we were on a line 
with the cross-bearer, leading the way for clergy 
and mourners through the streets. There was no 
escape. We could not turn back; we could not 
out-distance them. But, fortunately, before an 
archway at the entrance to a large Place the pro¬ 
cession was disbanded. Without further cere¬ 
mony, priests, stole and surplice under their arms, 
stray bishops in purple robes, naval and army 
officers, gentlemen in dress-coats and many medals, 
school-boys in uniform, peasants in caps, towns¬ 
people in ordinary clothes, walked home- or hotel- 
wards, we pushing the tricycle in their midst. 

At the Hotel de France we found confusion. 
Waiters tore in and out of the kitchen; maids flew 
up and down the court-yard. Frantic men and 


women 


[ 62 ] 

women surrounded, and together asked a hundred 
questions of a poor waiter in the centre of the 
court; an English family clamoured for a private 
dining-room.—During a momentary lull we stepped 
forward and told this waiter, who seemed a person 
of authority, we should like a room for the night. 

There was not one to be had, he said. If we 
would wait two or three hours, it was just very 
possible some of these Messieurs might go back to 
Paris. If not, we must travel into another country; 
he knew we should fare no better in any hotel in 
Abbeville. Last night he had turned away fifty 
people.- 

Where was the next country, asked I, for in his 
disappointment J-had lost all his French. 

It was only seven kilometres off. But, he 
added, we could dine in the hotel. 

—Our choice lay between a certain good dinner 
at once and a mere possibility later in a far-off 
town. We were both tired and hungry.- 

“ It will be dark in half a*n hour,” said I. 

“ We can never work after eating heartily,” said 

J-, and, our objections thus disposed of, we 

decided for immediate dinner, and to risk the 
consequences. 

—We wheeled the machine into the stable, con¬ 
veniently adjoining the dining-room. We were 

not 








fc:.* 

v' Tr7: 












































[ 64 ] 

not very fresh after a day’s ride through the wind, 
over dry and dusty roads, and as we were 
to dine in company with dignitaries of 
State and Church, I said that first we 
should like to make our toilet. “ Oh, 
certainly,” said the waiter, “ Folia ! ” and 
he pointed to a small spicket and a 
handkerchief of a towel at the dining¬ 
room door.—With no more elaborate 
preparation than these permitted, we 
went in and took our seats at table with bishops, 
officers, and statesmen in full dress. 

It was as we expected. When we had eaten a 
dinner worthy of the company, we were unwilling 
to ride farther. We could and would not leave 

Abbeville that night.—J- was silent over his 

sponge-cakes and wine, speaking only once, to 
consult me about the future tense of French verbs. 
Then he called the waiter.- 

“ Is there a room yet ? ” I asked. 

“ Not yet, Madame ,” and he bowed his regrets. 

“Well, then,” said J-, turning full upon him 

with the speech he had been ten minutes in com¬ 
posing, “ nous partirons pas si nous dormirons sur 
la table!” 

—Hitherto I had been his spokeswoman. The 
consequence of his sudden outburst in French was 

the 








the waiter’s hearty assurance that the first room at 
his disposal was ours, but we must not look for it 
until nine or ten. It was then a little after seven. 

This interval was spent in wandering about the 
town. The wind and the pav'e together had again 
made me very tired. I remember as a restless 



dream our walk up and down the streets; into the 
great Place , a sombre black catafalque on one side, 
lights burning around it, tall houses back of it, the 
still taller Church of St. Wulfran rising above the 
high gables; and next into the church itself, where 
the columns and arches and altars, draped in 
black, and the people kneeling at prayer, or com¬ 
ing and going in the aisles, were but dimly seen 
by the light of a few candles. I remember specu¬ 
lating on the chance of shelter there, if at the 
eleventh hour the hotel failed us. And then we 
were shut out by the sacristan, to wander again 
e through 




[ 66 ] 

through narrow, twisting streets; through brighter, 
livelier thoroughfares, the shops open, citizens and 
peasants laughing and talking; and so back to the 
Place, roofs and towers now but a black shadow 
on the dark blue of the evening sky; and at last 
to the hotel, where the good waiter met us with 
smiles.---A room at last! It was not very com¬ 
modious, but it was the best he could do. There 
followed a melancholy quarter of an hour, during 
which we sat on a heap of blankets in a dark 
passage while the garfon laid the sheets.—The 
waiter was right; the room was not the most com¬ 
modious. It was directly over the stable, and not 
larger than an old-fashioned closet. But it was 
better than church or dining-room; and though 
the garfon kept passing on the balcony without, 
and there was a ceaseless clatter in the court 
below, I was soon asleep. 



Faithful 


FAITHFUL ABBEVILLE. 

I T is a pity that most tourists go straight from 
Calais to Amiens, satisfied to know Abbeville 
as a station by the way. The fault, I suppose, lies 
with “Murray” and “Baedeker,” who are almost 
as curt with it as with Montreuil, giving but a few 
words to its Church of St. Wulfran, and even 
fewer to its quaint old houses. But the truth is, 
Abbeville is better worth a visit than many towns 
they praise. And though Mr. Tristram Shandy 
objected to one of its inns as unpleasant to die 
in, I can recommend another as excellent to live 
in, which, after all, is of more importance to the 
ordinary tourist. 

We remained in Abbeville the next day until 
noon. We went again to the church. We saw the 
house of Francis I. We found our way into alleys 
and courtyards, where grotesques were grinning and 
winking, as if they thought it an exquisite joke at last 
to be taken seriously by the few art and architectural 
critics, who now come to look at them. 


67 


Crushed 


N 


I 

s 



m&\ 

■n '»** 




- iPim-'W A 

1 'W A"- 
■f'>«" 'ji-' ■ •. 


•*»**"' 






\ 







































































CRUSHED AGAIN. 



ND now Mr. Ruskin writes :—“ I not only 


^ ^ object, but am quite prepared to spend all 
my best ‘ bad language ’ in reprobation of bi-tri-and- 
4-5-6 or 7-cycles, and every other contrivance and 
invention for superseding human feet on God’s 
ground. To walk, to run, to leap, and to dance 
are the virtues of the human body, and neither 
to stride on stilts, wriggle on wheels, or dangle on 
ropes, and nothing in the training of the human 
mind with the body will ever supersede the ap¬ 
pointed God’s ways of slow walking and hard 
working.” 

“ Oh well, let us go on,” said J-. 


69 


A 



A BY-ROAD. 

B ECAUSE of our sight-seeing we made a late 
start from Abbeville.—But then we deter¬ 
mined to go no farther than Amiens that day. It 
was a good ten minutes’ walk over 
the pave from the hotel to the end 
of the long Rue St. Gilles, where it 
is crossed by the railroad.—Here 
we were kept waiting another five 
minutes, in company with a carriage 
and two covered carts, while the 
woman in charge, who had shut the 
gate, put on her official hat and 

cape. Presently a faint whistle was heard.- 

“ Hold! ” said one of th$ drivers, “ I think he 
comes.” 

—And so he did, and at last we were allowed to 
pass and go our way.—Another weary kilometre of 
pave , and then we were on the highroad between 
the poplars. 

But when we had got off the stones there was 

still 



70 



[ 7i ] 

still the wind to fight. It blew in our faces with 
never-relaxing vigour, rushing through the trees 
and over the plain as if in haste to reach the sea. 
To make matters worse, the road was bad. The 
cavalry had ruined it, a stone-breaker said. We 
were soon riding on the side-walk.—The few white- 
capped, blue - skirted pedestrians we met went 
obligingly into the road ta let us pass. -- 

“ Pardon, ladies,” said we. 

“ Of nothing,” said they. 

“ The road is so bad,” we explained. 

“You have reason. An revoir ,” cried they. 

—The road ran straight along the edge of the 
upland. Below, a pretty river wound among reeds, 
and willows, overtopped by tall trees shivering in 
the wind. But hard work gave us little chance 
for pleasure in the landscape, until at Pont Remy 
we stopped on the bridge to take breath. 

We went back to the pedals with sad misgivings, 
like people who know that the worst is still to 
come. Just beyond, we left the Route Nationale 
for a by-road and unmitigated misery. Here we 
were led to believe there was no other road be¬ 
tween Abbeville and Amiens. Amiens, “ the very 
city where my poor lady is to come,” we could not 
miss. And yet Italian experience made us doubt 
the advisability of turning off the highroad. 

The 



[ 72 ] 

The wind was now directly in our faces, and the 
road was deep with sand and loose with stones, 
and we had not gone a mile, a mile but scarcely 
.one, when we lost our tempers outright and sent 
sentiment to the winds. First we climbed a long 
up-grade, passing old crumbling grey churches 
decorated with grotesques and gargoyles like those 
on St. Wulfran’s, in Abbeville, some perched upon 
hillocks, with cottages gathered about them, others 
adjoining lonely chateaux; and riding through 
forlornly poor villages full of houses tumbling to 
pieces and vicious dogs. Hills rose to our left; 
to our right, in the valley below, were wide 
marshes covered with a luxurious green growth, 
and beyond, the river, on the other side of 
which was a town with a tall church rising in 
its centre. 

Once we got down to drink syrup and water at 
an inn where a commercial traveller catechised us 
about America.- 

“ And the commerce, it goes well there ? Yes ? ” 

—I suppose he took us for fellow-drummers; 
and I must admit the idea of our travelling for 
pleasure over such roads was the last likely to 
occur to him. 

Then we went down hill for some distance, 
but we ran into ridges of sand and brought up 

suddenly 















[ 74 ] 

suddenly on a stone pile at the bottom. On the 
level the road became a shady avenue. But it 
grew worse as it increased in beauty. We wheeled 
first to one side, then to the other. We even 
tried the grass close to the trees. But soon we 
were down and walking, and pushing the wretched 
machine through the sand. And now riding was 
out of the question, it began to rain. When we 
came into Hangest- 

“We’ll take the train,” said J-. 

—But we had first to wait for two hours, during 
which we ate a lunch at the “ Sign of the Duck,” 
and sat at the station watching the passing trains 

and the signals.—In his demoralisation J- 

asked at the office for tickets for la treizieme c/asse, 
and then a man joined us and told us of the fine 
roads in his country, so that we wished we were 

there. Finally our train, came.—J-had some 

trouble with the machine. At the first baggage- 
car the conductor declared there was not room for 
it. The second was full and no mistake. He 
went back to the. first, and while the conductor 
remonstrated, pushed it in with the help of a 
porter. He then had just time to jump into 
the nearest carriage, which happened to be the 
same in which I had already found a seat, and 
the train started. The carriage was full.- 


C'est 






[ 75 ] 

“ C est complet, Monsieur ,” screamed a little man, 
in a passion. 

“ Certainly, Monsieur ,” said J-, as he fastened 

the door with a click behind him. 

“ I tell you it’s full,” repeated the little man, in 
his rage dancing to the window and calling the 
conductor. 

—It was too late. All he could do was to 

return to his seat and glower at J-, who calmly 

sat in the window.- 

“ We must not make the war,” said a good cure 
next to him, patting him gently on the shoulder. 

—He restrained his anger with a comforting 
drink of brandy. Monsieur le Cure fell to saying 
his beads, covering his mouth with his wide- 
brimmed hat, while all the other passengers 
laughed and nudged each other. A man in the 
corner, carrying a genuine American carpet-bag, 
drank something from a gingerbeer bottle, and 
asked us in good American what we knew of the 
hotels in Paris. 

At the next station J- got out, and the man 

from the country of beautiful roads, who had been 
sitting in the-adjoining compartment, met him at 
the door.- 

“ I render to you my place, Monsieur,” said he. 

—And so in perfect peace we made all possible 

speed 







speed to Picquigny, and from Picquigny to Amiens ; 
not, however, before we saw from the carriage 
windows that the road, now running alongside of 
the railway, was smooth and hard, that the sun 
shone, and that the wind blew but mildly. 

At Amiens the conductor was waiting on the 
platform full of apologies. He had really thought 
there was no room for the velocipede. Monsieur 
must pardon him. 

The French have a charming way of putting you 
in a good humour. We forgot the attack of the 
irascible traveller, as, let us hope, he forgave the 
enormity of J-’s crime. 



Amiens. 







AMIENS. 


W E should always remember Amiens, even 
were it not for the cathedral, because it 
was there we had the best dinner we ever ate in 
France.—In looking over my note-book I find I 
made at the time elaborate mention 
of the menu , and applied the adjective 
divine to a course of fresh mackerel 
served with an exquisite sauce.—As 
there may be readers who take inte¬ 
rest, and perhaps pleasure, in dining 
well, I will here add that this excel¬ 
lent meal was eaten at the Hotel de l’Univers. I 
can wish the visitor to Amiens no better luck 
than a dinner in this hotel prepared by the same 
artist. 

It was a pity that, before leaving England—we 
had been so taken up with Mr. Sterne, whose sen¬ 
timent was not to be distracted with cathedrals 
and old houses—we did not consult Mr. Ruskin, 
who probably thought of nothing else while he 



77 


was 


[ 78 ] 

was in Amiens.—To the unsentimental traveller I 
would recommend the traveller’s edition of “ Our 
Fathers have Told Us” (Part I. chap, iv.), rather 
than the “Sentimental Journey,” as a guide-book 
to the town. 

We had two hours of daylight on the afternoon 
of our arrival, and we remained in the city until 
noon the next day, partly because there were many 
things to see, and partly on account of a heavy 
wind and rain storm in the morning. We were 
not much troubled by sentiment, though here Mr. 
Sterne’s overflowed into three chapters. But it was 
of a kind so impossible for us to simulate—not 
having left an Eliza in England, nor knowing a 
fair Countess in the town-—we put all thought or 
hope of it aside, and went out to look about. 

What pleased us most were the many canal-like 
branches of the Somme, old fumbled-down houses 
rising from the water, and little foot-bridges con¬ 
necting them with opposite gardens. We liked, 
too, the wider and less modest main current of 
the river, where men or women in flat boats with 
pointed prows and square sterns, like inclined 
planes, were for ever poling themselves down 
stream beyond the embankment where the poplars 
begin.—But I remember we lingered longest on a 
bridge over a tiny canal from which there was a 

fine 


[ 79 ] 


fine view of disreputably 
shabby back doors, 
women appearing and 
disappearing as they 
emptied their pails and 
pots, and of battered 
windows from which 
hung the family ward¬ 
robes. It was then, I 
believe, we pronounced 
Amiens the French 
Venice—an original idea 
which most likely occurs 
to every tourist fortunate 
enough to find his way to 
the banks of the Somme. 
Indeed I have since read 
that in the good old days, 
before a straight street 
had been dreamed of 
by city officials, the town 
was known as Little 
Venice. 

Delightful as were the 
scenes by the river in 
the late afternoon, they 
were even more so in 
the early morning, when, 
from 




[ 8o ] 

from under a borrowed umbrella, we watched the 
open-air market. The embankment was carpeted 
with greens and full of noisy peasants. The prevail¬ 
ing tint, like that of the sky above, was a dull bluish 
grey, relieved here and there by a dash of white. 
Fastened to rings in the stone wall of the embank¬ 
ment, some thirty or forty of the boats with pointed 
prows lay on the water. Two, piled high with 
cabbages and carrots, the brightest bit of colour in 
the picture, were being poled towards the market¬ 
place. Others, laden with empty baskets, satisfied- 
looking women in the prow, a man at the stern, 
were on their homeward way. And above the 
river and the busy people and the background of 
houses the great cathedral loomed up, a “ mass of 
wall, not blank, but strangely wrought by the hands 
of foolish men of long ago.” 

We found a priest saying Mass in the chapel 
behind the choir, the eastern light shining on him 
at the altar. His congregation consisted of four 
poor women and one great lady in silk attire kneel¬ 
ing in the place of honour. In the nave and aisles 
were a handful of tourists and two sentimental 
travellers— i.e., ourselves, who scorned to be classed 
as tourists—uttering platitudes under their breath 
about the unspeakable feeling of space and height, 
as if the cathedral existed but to excite their wonder. 

We 


* 





¥ 





































[ 82 ] 



We went also to the old belfry, a fine substantial 
pile, allowed to stand, I suppose, because to re¬ 
move it would be too herculean a task. Our 
attention was distracted from it to a pair of French 

twins staggering by, 
arm in arm, both 
wearing baggy 
brown velveteen 
trousers, striped 
shirts and open 
coats, and little 
round caps, which 
rested on each 
curly head at ex¬ 
actly the same 
angle. It was 
rather absurd to 
discover that they 
were no greater 
oddities to us than 
we were to them. 
Of one accord they 
stopped to stare so¬ 
lemnly at J-’s 

knee-breeches and long stockings. Indeed I might 
as well say here, as in any other place, that we 
were greater objects of curiosity off the machine 

than 








[ 83 ] 

than on it.—Always, as in Calais, the eminently 
quiet and respectable Cyclists’ Touring Club 
uniform seemed to strike every French man and 
woman as a problem impossible to solve but easy 
to ridicule. 



Wind, 


WIND, POPLARS, AND 
PLAINS. 


HERE is nothing more pleasing to a tra- 



JL veller, or more terrible to travel-writers, 
than a large rich plain, unless it be a straight white 
poplar-lined road, good as asphalt. After Amiens, 
as after Abbeville and Neuchatel, there was a 
poplared avenue over a breezy upland to carry us 
to the next town, that town little more but a new 



place to start from to the next plain and poplars, 
and so on. There were cafitonniers still at work, 
sweeping the highway with great brooms.- 


“ You 



“You sweep them everyday?” asked J-of one. 

“ Every day—yes,” he answered. 

—And there was still a strong wind rushing 
down between the trees and 
blowing my skirts about my 
feet. Riding against it was 
such hard work that I walked 
many kilometres during the 
morning. But indeed there 
was scarce any walking with 
ease. 

We were glad many of the 
towns and villages were in 
little valleys. After hours, 
perhaps, of steady pedalling, 
it was pleasant to coast down a long hill, while a 
country postman stopped in his struggle with a 
French operatic umbrella turned inside out by the 




wind, to smile and show the loss of all his front 
teeth, as he cried- 







[ 86 ] 


“ Ah, but it goes well! ” 

—And then, alas ! came another hill, this time 
to be climbed, and the admiration changed to sym¬ 
pathy. I remember in particular an old woman 
on the hill outside of Amiens, who was sorry there 
was still a long way up the mountain. When we 

asked her how far it was to the top- 

“ Behold ! ” said she, and pointed a few yards 
ahead. 


In an insignificant village near the Forest of 
Drouy—the one wooded oasis in 
the treeless plain—our cafe-au-lait 
was for the first time served in 
the basins to whose size our eyes 
and appetites were quickly to be 
accustomed. In a second, where 
there was an old grey church with 
grinning gargoyles, a pedler’s cart, 
big bell hanging in front, tempting wares displayed, 
blocked the way.- 




“ It is a bon marche you have here,” said J 


to 













[ 88 f 

to the pedler, with a politeness that would not 
have disgraced a Frenchman. 



—In Breteuil, a good-sized town with fair share 
of pave, we met another funeral party—gentlemen 



in long black frock-coats and antiquated silk hats. 

They 


[ 89 ] 

They had come down from Paris to bury a most 
virtuous lady, we learned from the proprietor of 
the cafe. They were vastly taken with the tricycle, 
however, testing its saddles while we drank our 
syrup and water. 

It was a beautiful ride we should now have 
to St. Just, the proprietor foretold. It would be 
level all the way.—“ What! no hills ? ” we asked. 
None, he declared, that de¬ 
served the name.—It is need¬ 
less to add that we at once 
came to three or four up 
which we pushed the 
machine, because of their 
steepness. But much could we forgive him. He 
it was who counselled us to spend the night at the 
Cheval Blanc in St. Just, where we had a plenteous 
brave dinner and the greatest civility that ever we 
had from any man, as Pepys would say. Besides, 
the latter part of the ride was lovelier than his 
foretelling. The wind abated, and work was so 
easy we could look out over the fields to the 
distant villages, their church spires white in the 
sunlight or turned to grey, even as we watched, by 
a passing cloud. It is for just such happy intervals 
the cycler braves wild winds and high hills. The 
day, it is true, was from beginning to end uneventful. 

But 



[ 9 ° ] 


But we had not looked or hoped for adventures. 
—Of his journey between Amiens and Paris our 
Master says not a word. 
Mr. Tristram Shandy recalls 
his but to regret that he was 
then prevented, by trouble¬ 
some postillions, from grati¬ 
fying his kindly propensity 
to sleep. Therefore we felt, that to-day at least, 
we had no sentimental shortcomings with which to 
reproach ourselves. 

The sun had set, and Gipsies by the roadside 
were preparing their evening meal when we came 
to the pave of St. Just. 



b 



The 


THE COMMERCIAL GENTLEMEN 
OF ST. JUST. 

• 

AT the Cheval Blanc the landlady gave us a 
room over the stable on the farther side of 
a large court-yard. 

From the window we 
looked down into the court 
on chickens and ducks, and 
on a woman watering a small 
vegetable garden, and the 
poultry and vegetables re¬ 
minded us that we had not 
dined. So we went to the 
cafe of the hotel, where 
Madame stayed our hunger 
with the overgrown lady 
fingers that are served with 
dessert at every well-regulated 
table d'hote , and where a small man in a frock-coat 
and Derby hat, with a very loud voice, exchanged 
political opinions with a large man in a blue blouse 

with 



91 


with no voice to speak of; while a third, in white 
blouse and overalls, stood and listened in neutral 
silence. 

The discussion was at its liveliest when the 
dinner-bell rang, and we hurried off in such in¬ 
decent haste that we were the first to arrive in the 
dining-room. We knew as soon as we saw the 
pots of mignonette and geranium and the well- 
trimmed, well-shaded lamps on the table, that who¬ 
ever had placed them there must have prepared 
dishes worthy to be served by their sweet scent 
and soft light, and we were not disappointed.—I 
have seldom eaten a better dinner. We were ten 
altogether at table. Seven men were guests like 
ourselves. One was an unwearying sportsman of 
France. The six others we soon discovered to 
be commercial gentlemen, though what so many 
travellers could find to do in one such small place 
was a mystery we do not pretend to solve. Madame , 
the landlady, was the tenth in the company. She 
presided in person, not at tho head, but at the 
centre of one side, of the table. We sat directly 
opposite, encompassed about with drummers and 
touters.- 

“ Monsieur and Madame arrived from Amiens on 
a velocipede,” said the landlady, opening the con¬ 
versation and the soup-tureen at the same moment. 

—The 



[ 93 ] 

—The sportsman started to speak, hesitated, 
coughed, and fell to feeding his dogs with bread. 
The commercial gentlemen wanted to know at 
what hotel we stopped in Amiens. 

At this moment a diversion was made by the 
entrance of a stout man with the smile of a clown 
and the short forked beard of a Mephistopheles, 
who took his place on Madame's right.- 

“ Mon Diet /, Madame ,” said he, as a plate of 
soup was put in front of him and the tureen carried 
away, “ I came next to you because I love you; 
and you would starve me? You would give me no 
more soup! ” 

“ But you are greedy,” said Madame. 

—The soup, however, was left on a side 
table.- 

“ I have been starved already to-day,” he went 
on, before we had time to answer the question put 
to us. “I slept last night at a grand hotel. It 
was so grand that this morning for breakfast they 
could give me but cutlets of mutton and cutlets of 
pork and ham—and ham, one knows it well, it 
counts for nothing. Is this not true, Madame ?” 

—He had had a wide and remarkable experience 
of hotels. He knew one. Ma foi! they swept it 
every day. But he knew another. Dame! there 
the floors were waxed and rubbed daily, so that if 


a 




[ 94 ] 

a beefsteak were to fall on them it would be as 
clean as if it fell upon a plate. For his part, how¬ 
ever, he thought no hotel would be perfect until it 
made a law to give each guest a partridge and half 
a bottle of wine with his candle, in case of hunger 
during the night. 

A little man with a light moustache, on Madame's 
left, as he amiably filled her glass with wine and 
seltzer, recalled a certain town where the hotels 
were closed at ten. He arrived at midnight; every 
door was shut. What did he do ? He could not 
sleep in the street. He went to the Mairie. 

The man next to J- had heard of a hotel 

where if you stayed out after ten they would not 
permit you to enter even if they had your baggage. 
The proprietor would come to a window above 
when you knocked, and throw your trunks down 
rather than open the door. He then made no 
charge.- 

“Ma foil" thought Mephistopheles, who could 
no more have begun a sentence without an ejacula¬ 
tion than he could have eaten his dinner without 
wine, “ he would take the pave and* throw it at the 
head of such a proprietor.” 

—Then they turned to hear our experience. 
They appealed to J-. 

“ O, nous,” he began bravely, “ nous avons ete en 

France 





[ 95 ] 

France pour deux jours seulement ”—then suddenly 
to me, “Oh, bother, you tell the fellow what he 
wants, and ask them if they know any decent 
hotels on the route,” and he took out our route- 
form. 

—I explained our intention to ride through 
France into Italy, and asked if they would have 
the goodness to recommend hotels by the way. 

We could not have paid them a greater com¬ 
pliment. The next minute the route-form was 
passed from one to the other, and by the name of 
each town was written the name of a commercial 
hotel which meant a good dinner and a moderate 
bill. But not one of the houses in the C. T. C. 
Handbook was on the list.—Mr. Howells, in his 
Italiaii Journeys, declares it to be the evident 
intention of a French drummer, “not only to 
keep all his own advantages, but to steal some of 
yours upon the first occasion.” I wish he could 
have seen these men at St. Just, as each helped 
his neighbour to wine before filling his own glass. 
A commercial gentleman apparently would not 
think of not sharing his bottle with some one, 
or of not calling for another when his first was 
empty, in obedience to the sign seen in so many 
hotels, “ Vin a discretion.” It must be admitted 
that this is only what an Englishman would call 

“ good 


[ 96 ] 

“good form” in commercial circles, since one 
bottle always stands between two covers. But 
then, when did “good form” ever serve such 
practical ends in England ? 

We saw nothing of the French travellers’ ill- 
breeding of which Mr. Howells so bitterly com¬ 
plains. If they talked, well, is it not their business 
to talk? Besides, they never once referred to 
trade or praised their wares. I know men of 
far higher professions who cannot boast of a like 
discretion. Indeed, is it not a common thing for 
great men to give dinners for the express purpose 
of talking “shop”?—It is true Mephistopheles, 
when he wanted to call Madame's attention, beat 
on the table with his knife-handle and shouted in 
a voice of thunder- 

“ Madame ! Madame Emilie! Emilie ! Bon 
Dieu ! gentlemen, she will not listen ! ’’ 

—But if she took this in perfect good nature 
it was not for us to object. That she did not 
find fault was clear. While we were eating 
mutton I noticed he was served with a special 
dish of birds. 

The excellence of the dinner and the good- 
humour of the company came to a climax with 
the course of beans. Mephistopheles asserted 
enthusiastically that had they not been invented 

already 




[ 97 ] 

already he would have invented them himself. 
Monsieur on Madeline's left wondered who brought 
them into France. Somebody suggested the 
Bishop of Soissons. As they all laughed this 
must have been a joke, but we could not under¬ 
stand it; and though I have since spent hours 
over it in the British Museum, I still fail to see 

the point.—The traveller next to J- said 

nothing, but was twice helped to the favourite 
dish. 

Afterwards in the cafe Madame introduced us 
to an Englishman who had lived thirty years in 
St. Just, and who was always glad to see his 
countrymen. We explained we were Americans, 
but he assured us it was an equal pleasure—he 
always liked to speak the English.—Whatever else 
St. Just had done for him, it had made him forget 
his mother tongue.—He was much pleased with 
our tandem, which he had examined while we 
were at dinner. He rode a bicycle, and was 
therefore competent to judge its merits. He also 
thought ours a fine journey when we showed him 
our route on the map. 

In the meantime, the commercial gentlemen 
had settled down to coffee and the papers, and 
the evening promised to be peaceful. But pre¬ 
sently the little man with the light moustache, who 
G had 





t 98 ] 

had sat on Madeline's left, put his paper down 
to comment on the advantages of naturalisation, 
on which subject he had just been reading an 
editorial. It was a great thing for the country, 
he thought, that the children of foreigners should 
be permitted to become Frenchmen. 

But Mephistopheles was down upon him in an 
instant. He would not hear of naturalisation.- 

“ Mon Dieu! I am a Frenchman. I go to 
America or Austria. A son is born to me there. 
Is he an American or an Austrian ? No, Monsieur , 
he is a Frenchman ! ” and he glared defiance. 

—But the little man reasoned that, on the other 
hand, France was too hospitable not to take in 
strangers. 

Mephistopheles swore it was not logical, and, 
what was more, it was against la morale , and la 
morale was prime. This was his clinching argu¬ 
ment. 

The dispute grew warm. They both left their 
coffee and walked up and* down the room with 
great angry strides, beat themselves on their breasts, 
threw their arms to right and left; one would have 
thought blows were imminent. In passing, they 
stopped simultaneously before the sportsman, who 
sat near me.-- 

“ And you, sir, what do you say ? ” 

“ My 




[ 99 ] 

“ My faith, gentlemen, I say you are both too 
violent.” 

—Thus startled into speech, he turned to me to 
explain his views.- 

“A man wishes to adopt France. Et bien? 
it is reasonable that France should adopt him.” 

—When I looked around again the argument 
had been amicably adjusted over a backgammon 
board. 


Through 




THROUGH THE RAIN. 

T HOUGH the Englishman was not on hand 
in the morning, Madame , all the com¬ 
mercial gentlemen except Mephistopheles, the 
waiter, and the postman; who was just then 
passing, stood out on the street to see us start.™ 
We carried away from St. Just not only pleasant 
recollections, but a handful of sticking labels of 
advertisement of the Cheval Blanc, which Madame 
pressed upon us as she shook hands. 

The first place of note was Fitz-James, labelled 

in 


IOO 






[ 101 ] 

in the convenient French fashion, its aggressive 
English name as unadaptable to foreign pronuncia¬ 
tion as is English prejudice to foreign customs. 
There we pushed the tricycle to the other end of 
the town, then up the long hill into the principal 
street of Clermont, to find that the hill did not 
end with the pave. There still remained a climb 
of two kilometres. 

From the top of the hill outside of Clermont, 
six kilometres into Angy, we went with feet up as 
fast as the clouds, now ominously black. Of such 
a ride what should one remember save the rapid 
motion through fresh green country ? Before we 
realised our pleasure we were in Angy, and then 
in Mouy, which is literally next door, and where 
we lunched at a cafe with as little loss of time as 
possible.—We hoped to get to Paris that night. 
We were determined to take the train at Beaumont, 
since there were forty-seven kilometres of pave 
from that town to the capital.—In our first en¬ 
thusiasm, before our troubles came upon us, we 
had declared that nothing, not even pave , would 
induce us to forswear sentiment and go by train. 
But, thanks to the few kilometres we had already 
bumped over, we were wiser now. All the old 
travellers over the post-roads complain of the pave. 
Mr. Sterne, as at Nampont, found it a hindrance 

to 


[ 102 ] 

to sentiment. Before his day, Evelyn lamented 
that if the country, where the roads are paved with 
a small square freestone, “does not much molest 
the traveller with dirt and ill way as in England, 
’tis somewhat hard to the poor horses’ feet, which 
causes them to ride more temperately, seldom going 
out of the trot, or grand pas , as they call it.” 

If it is so hard to horses’ feet, fancy what it must 
be to the tyres of a tricycle ! 

No sooner were we out of the town than the 
rain began. At first it was but a soft light shower. 
But it turned into a drenching pour just as we 
came into a grey thatch-roofed village. We took 
shelter by a stone wall under a tree. A woman 
offered to lend us her umbrella; we' could send 
it back the next day, she insisted. This was 
the most disinterested benevolence shown us 
throughout the journey. 

Presently we set out again, but only to retreat 
almost at once up a little vine-covered path leading 
to a cottage whose owner, when he saw us, invited 
us indoors. It seemed useless to wait, however. 
We had dragged the tricycle under the vines, but 
the rain dripped through and made the saddles 
wet and slippery. We thanked him kindly, put 
on our gossamers, and then plodded on through 
the driving rain over a sticky clay road. Now, 

almost 






I 


\ 











almost blinded, we worked up long ascents be¬ 
tween woods and fields where indefatigable sports¬ 
men frightened what birds there were. Now we 
rode through deserted villages and by dreary 
chateaux.—Occasionally the rain stopped, only to 
begin the next second with fresh force. Against 
it our gossamers were of no more avail than if they 
had been so much paper. In half-an-hour we 
were uncomfortably conscious that our only dry 
clothes were in the bag. As misfortunes never 
come singly, the luggage - carrier loosened and 
swung around to the left of the backbone. Every 

few minutes J-was down in the mud setting 

it straight again. The water poured in streams 
from our hats. With each turn of the wheels we 
were covered with mud. 

It was in this condition we rode into the streets 
of Neuilly. Men and women came to their doors 
and laughed as we passed.—This decided us. 
There is nothing that chills sentiment as quickly 
as a drenching and ridicule . 1 We went to the 
railway station, to learn there would be no train 
for three hours. It was simply out of the question 
to wait in our wet clothes for that length of time. 
That it never once occurred to us to stay in the 
town overnight shows how poorly we thought of it. 
Back we went through the streets, again greeted 

with 



with the same heartless laughter from every side. 
If I were a prophet I would send an army of bears 
to devour the people of Neuilly. 

The rain, the mud, and the luggage-carrier had 
it their own way the rest of the afternoon. When 
we could we rode as if for our lives.—But every now 

and again we had to stop, that J-might unlace 

his boots, take them off, and let the water run out 
of them. Of course no one was abroad. What 
sane men would have dared such weather? We 
met but one small boy driving a big cart in a 
zig-zag course, particularly aggravating because we 
were just then on a down-grade. This was the last 

affront that made the rest unbearable. J- is 

not a man patient of injuries.—— 



“ Million names of the name ! Little fly ! ” he 
yelled, and the boy let us pass. 

—When a turn in the road brought us out on 

the 




[ 106 ] 

the banks of the Oise, we were so wet that a plunge 
in its waters could not have made us wetter.’---A 
grey town, climbing up to a grey church, rose on 
the opposite banks. We supposed it must be Beau¬ 
mont. But indeed its name just then mattered 
little. Without stopping to identify it, we crossed 
the bridge and got down at the first inn we 
came to. 



AN ENGLISH LANDLADY. 

F ORTUNATELY the town really was Beau¬ 
mont, and the first inn tolerably decent— 
so decent we wondered as to our reception. With 
due respect for the clean floors, we waited humbly 

at the threshold until the landlady appeared.- 

“We are very wet,” said I in French, as if this 
was not a self-evident truth. 

“ Oh ! ” said she in unmistakable insular English. 
“Fancy! ” 

—Here was a stroke of good luck ! A French¬ 
woman would have measured our respectability by 
our looks; an Englishwoman could judge us by 

our love for sport. She sent a boy with J-to 

put away the tricycle, and bade me follow her. 
Where we had stood were two pools of water. 
She took my gossamer; a muddy stream ran down 
the passage. I made a wet trail wherever I went. 
I followed the landlady up two flights of stairs into 
a well-furnished bedroom. I thought that now our 
troubles were at an end. But when J-joined 


107 


me 





[ i°8 ] 

me I found there were two more to add to the list. 
—It seemed that just as he unstrapped the bag 
the luggage-carrier snapped at the top. And still 
worse, the constant swinging of the carrier had 
worked the bag partly open, and half its contents 
were well soaked. We managed to get together 
a few dry flannels, and then piled the rest of our 
wardrobe, from hats to shoes, outside the door—a 
melancholy monument to our misfortunes. The 
landlady, returning just then with two glasses of 
hot brandy and water, promised to carry our clothes 
downstairs and have them dried at once. 

So far, so good; but what was to be done next ? 
To remain in our present thin attire meant certain 
colds, if nothing more serious. There was but one 
alternative, and we accepted it. When the land¬ 
lady unceremoniously opened the door and saw us 
sitting up in the two little beds, solemnly staring at 
each other as we sipped the brandy and water, she 
was so embarrassed she forgot her English and 
broke out in French. It was fluent, but little else 
could be said for it. In a minute she was out of 
the room ; in another she was knocking discreetly, 
and telling us there were dressing-gowns and shawls 
and slippers without^ at our service. She was of 
the opinion that bed was no place for us, and 
would not hear of our staying there. We must 


come 





✓ 




















t 110 ] 

come into her private sitting-room, where there 
was a fire. As a rule private sitting-rooms and 
fires in September are not insignificant items in a 
bill. But' she would hear of no excuse, and waited 
by the door until we dressed, after a fashion. 

I flattered myself that I, in her neat wrapper, 
with a little white ruffle in the neck, made quite a 
presentable appearance. J-’s costume, consist¬ 

ing of her husband’s dressing-gown and a short 
kilt improvised out of a plaid-shawl, was more 
picturesque, but less successful.—It was still so wet 
without that we found comfort in the great wood 
fire in her room. She gave us easy-chairs, one on 
either side, and for our entertainment produced 
Thornbury’s illustrated London. But we were more 
taken up in looking at each other, and were reason¬ 
ably serious only when she was in the room. 

At half-past six she announced dinner, adding 
that our clothes were not yet dry, though a large 
fire had been kindled for their express benefit. I 

looked at J-. No, it was simply impossible to 

appear at the table d'hote with him in his present 
costume. Before I had time to tell him so- 

“You can’t go down as you now are,” said he 
to me. 

—The landlady was of the same mind, for a 
pretty little maid, coming in just then, laid the 

cloth 





[ I" J 

cloth on the table in the centre of the room. I 
thought of our bill the next morning. Private 
dining-rooms, like private sitting-rooms, are luxuries 
not to be had for nothing. 

The dinner was good, and the little maid, be it 
said to her credit, behaved with great propriety. 
So long as she was in attendance she never once 
smiled. However, I cannot answ r er for her gravity 
on the other side of the door. 

It was half-past eight when the landlady said 
good-night, assuring us everything would be ready 
early in the morning.—But we went to bed at once. 
The last thing we heard before we fell asleep was 
the rain still pouring into the waters of the Oise 
and upon the paved streets of Beaumont. 


Over 



OVER THE PA VA. 


EXT morning, because we were to go by 



^1 train, we realised the advantage of travel¬ 
ling by tricycle. Early as we were, our clothes, 
dry and clean, were in readiness. When we 
appeared in them in the public dining-room the 
maid at first did not recognise us.—I think it is 
well worth recording that our bill amounted to just 
twelve francs and fifty centimes, though all the 
items, even to the fire that dried our entire ward¬ 
robe, were mentioned separately.—After breakfast 

J- carried the luggage-carrier to a blacksmith 

within a few doors of the hotel. The latter exa¬ 
mined it, found the trouble to be but trifling, and 
accordingly treated it as such, to our later dis¬ 
comfiture. The rain had stopped, though the 


clouds 


12 









[ ”3 ] 

clouds were still heavy. There was nothing to 
detain us save the provoking fact that the train 
would not start for an hour. It was at these times 
we .best appreciated the independence of cycling. 

This delay gave us a chance to see something 
of Beaumont, a town we found interesting chiefly 
because it was there we crossed the route of Mr. 
Stevenson’s Inland Voyage. That whatever attrac¬ 
tions it may possess do not appear on its surface, 
is shown by this book, since Mr. Stevenson, who 
on his way down the Oise must have paddled past, 
never even names Beaumont. Mr. Evelyn, who 
in the course of his travels went through it, merely 
mentions it, while our sentimental Master ignores 
it altogether. It would therefore seem more in his 
spirit to say as little about it as possible. 

—We left the train at St. Denis, had the 
tricycle lifted out — always a trouble at way 
stations—only to be told the Ceinture was three- 
quarters of a mile nearer Paris, and that we could 
not carry the machine on it, since baggage-cars 
were never attached to the trains. The porter 
suggested we could walk to the first Ceinture 
station, and take the train to the Gare de Lyon. 
He would put the velocipede on another train that 
would carry it to the Gare du Nord. We could 
on our arrival return to the Gare du Nord and 
h ride 


[ “4 ] 

ride the velocipede across the city. If Monsieur 
was pleased to do this he would charge himself 
with the machine. This ingenious suggestion we 
dismissed with the contempt it deserved. Then 
he said there was nothing to do but to wait at St. 
Denis for the next train to Paris, due in an hour 
and a half. 

I declare during that long wasted interval we 
did not as much as turn our heads on the side 
towards the Abbey. Richness of their treasury ! 
Stuff and nonsense ! Bating their jewels, which 
are all false, I would not give three sous for any 
one thing in it but Jaidas’ lantern; nor for that 
neither, only as it grows dark it might be of use. 
But on second thoughts I doubt if it would be 
much better than the lamp on the tricycle. Of 
course Mr. Tristram Shandy’s words are recognised 
at once? But then, why should I not use them 
if they set forth the sentiments that certainly would 
have been ours had we or^e remembered there 
was an Abbey at St. Denis ? 


Paris. 


PARIS. 



RACK, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack. 


So this is Paris ! quoth we, continuing in 
the same mood, when, having at last reached the 
Gctre du Nord , we went out on the street in search 
of a cab—So this is Paris ! 

The first, the finest, the most brilliant! 

The cabmen at first would have nothing to do 
with us. Take that thing on their carriage in¬ 
deed ! Crack, crack—crack, crack—what a fuss 
they made ! But at last, when chances of a fare 
grew less, they listened to our explanation that the 
cab was but for me and the bag. 

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 
ten. Ten cafes within three minutes’ driving! 
To see Paris from a cab, as you cross the city from 
one station to another, is to conclude that Parisians 
do nothing but drink coffee. As if he had read 
my thoughts, and would confirm me in this opinion, 
the driver set me down in front of the large cafe of 
the Gare de Lyon. 


Inside 


[ "6 ] 

Inside the station I waited with the usual crowd ; 
—with slouchy, red-trousered soldiers and baggy 
Zouaves, old cures and one brand-new cure , young 
ladies with high heels and old women in caps, 
young men in straight - brimmed tall hats, and 
gendarmes in full uniform. At the end of an hour 



J- joined me. He looked very warm, his 

clothes were well bespattered with mud, and the 
lamp was sticking out of his coat pocket.—Though 
the streets of Paris are no longer villainously 
narrow, it is, I am sure, as difficult as ever to 
turn a wheelbarrow in them, because of the reck¬ 
lessness of the drivers and the vileness of the 
pave. At all events it is no easy matter to wheel 
a tricycle through the broadest boulevards. Still 

j— 



[ "7 ] 

J- had much to be thankful for. He was run 

into but twice, and only the luggage-carrier and 
the lamp were broken. 

We lunched in the cafe. Some of the high- 
heeled young ladies and high-hatted young gentle¬ 
men were lunching there at the same time. They 
and the waiters stared at us too astonished to 

smile. It is true we, and more especially J-, 

had not the Parisian air. But stares were the 
only attentions we received. This made us glad 
we had decided not to stay several days in Paris 
in order to go on pilgrimage to Versailles. In 
the capital, apparently, knee-breeches were too 
conspicuous for comfort.—It was on business con¬ 
nected with his passport Mr. Sterne went to Ver¬ 
sailles. We had no passport; therefore it would 
be absurd to follow him thither. This was our 
argument. But it seemed as if the farther we rode 
on our journey the more certain we were to make 
sentimental plans but to break them. 

No; I cannot stop a moment to give you the 
character of the people—their genius, their man¬ 
ners, their customs, their laws, their religion, their 
government, their manufactures, their commerce, 
their finances, with all the resources and hidden 
springs that sustain them—qualified as I may be 
by spending three hours amongst them, and during 

all 





[ ”8 ] 

all that time making these things the entire subject 
of my inquiries and reflections. 

Still,—still we must away—the roads were paved ; 
we could not ride; the train went at 12.15 ; ’twas 
almost noon when we finished our lunch. 

The notice inside the station announced the 
departure of the train at a quarter past twelve; 
but on the platform a porter, pointing to a second 
official placard that changed the hour to twelve, 
hurried the tricycle into the baggage-car, and us 
into the first second-class carriage we came to. It 
seemed that notices were set up at the Gare de 
Lyon for the confusion of travellers ! The carriage 
was empty save for a bag and one overcoat. 

At the last moment—the train, in utter disregard 
of both notices, starting at five minutes after twelve 
—the owner of the bag jumped in. He gave us 
one glance, seized his property, and fairly fled.—I 
might have fancied we were not concerned in his 
flight had it not been for t}ie sequel at Melun. 

Here at the station J-, with the bag, was out 

even before the train stopped. When I followed 
to the door the man was already on the platform. 
The moment I stepped out he stepped in, shut the 
door with a bang, and from the window watched 
our suspicious movements.—I wondered what he 
thought when he saw the tandem. 

The 


[ ”9 ] 

The porters and stationmaster immediately were 
for showing us the road to Barbizon. That the 
little village was our destination they had no 
doubt. Did they not see Monsieur's portfolio ?— 
They were mightily interested in the tricycle, and 
leaned over the railroad bridge above the road to 
watch it out of sight. But by shouting down use¬ 
less parting directions, they made it seem as if 
they were there for our convenience rather than for 
their curiosity.—As for Melun, though if was of 
old a Roman town, and later was made famous 
by Abelard, I can say nothing of it, for the good 
reason that we at once turned our backs upon its 
pave. 



TALK ABOUT M. MIL¬ 
LET AND MR. STEVEN¬ 
SON, AND FROM MR. 
PENNELL. 

T HE ride from Melun to 
Barbizon and through 
the Forest of Fontainebleau 
was a pilgrimage within a pilgrimage. Like Chris¬ 
tian, we were tempted to desert the straight course, 
and, like him, we yielded. We turned out of our 
sentimental way to see M. Millet’s house for plea¬ 
sure.—To be strictly truthful, I must add that 
another good reason for going by Barbizon was the 
knowledge that the pave of the national road only 
Comes to an end at Fontainebleau, together with 
our eagerness to be out of the train and riding 
again as soon as possible.—By following the Chailly 
and Barbizon road to the Forest we could have 
our desire and spare the tricycle. 


120 


It 


It considerately cleared with the early afternoon, 
and the cloud masses, now white and soft, drifted 
apart, to leave blue spaces between.—We had a 
shower or two, but so light we were not wet; and 
presently the sun coming out set the rain-drops on 
the bushes and heather by the wayside to glittering. 

Not far from Melun we met four bicyclers. 
Much has been said about the “ freemasonry of 
the wheel.” There is a pleasant suggestion of 
good-fellowship in the expression, but I think it 
merely means that cyclers, who abroad will speak 
to any other cycler who gives them the chance, at 
home ignore all but friends and acquaintances. 
At least this is the definition which French, like 
English, riders practically accept.—Of the four near 
Melun, two wheeled by as if they did not see us, 
and the third tried not to smile. The fourth, how¬ 
ever, wished us a Bon jour , but it was scarcely 
disinterested. It turned out he had just ordered a 
Rotarie from Bordeaux, and wanted to know some 
thing of the system of our tandem.- 

In how many ways could it be used, for example? 
and what time could we make on it ? 

—The freemasonry in his case only carried him 
over level ground. At the foot of the first hill he 
left us. 

We were in a humour for fault-finding. The 

luggage-carrier, 



t 


[ 122 ] 

luggage-carrier, of course, was to blame. Like 
Christian, we were punished for going out of our 
way, I suppose. Certain it is that before long we 
stood still, as he did, and wotted not what to do.— 
If the blacksmith at Beaumont had been a little 
more serious in his work, the accident in Paris 
might not have happened; or indeed, to go back 
to the beginning of the evil, if Humber & Co. had 
only known as much as they think they know 
about their own business, we should not have 
found ourselves half-way to Chailly with the 
luggage-carrier hanging on by one screw.—We 
managed to keep it in place after a. fashion; but 
there was no riding fast, and I do not believe in 
the whole course of our journey we ever sighted a 
town so joyously as we did Chailly, lying “ dustily 
slumbering in the plain.” 

In our struggles we had pulled off a strap, and I 
went to the harness-maker’s to see if it could there 
be re-fastened, while J-knocked at the black¬ 

smith’s. For five minutes no one answered; and 
then at last an old woman, clean and neat as her 
village, opened the door, and made quite a show of 
briskness by asking what I wanted. She said of 
course the matter could be attended to. But when 
I represented I must have it done at once- 

“ My dear Madam, it is impossible,” she said. 

“The 



* 


t 123 ] 

“ The workmen have been gone two days, and I 
cannot tell when they will return.” 

—At the blacksmith’s J-’s knocks summoned 

only two children, who stared as if nothing was 
more unlooked for at the shop than a customer. 
—Our needs were urgent, and it was useless to 

attempt to make them understand. J- went 

boldly in, and helped himself to wire and a nail. 
—While he was blacksmithing for himself their 
mother came out and bade him take whatever he 
wanted. The workmen had been away a week, 
and she did not know when they would be back 
again.—That workmen should leave Chailly to find 
something to do did not seem surprising. The 
only wonder was they should think it worth their 
while to stay there at all.—As we stood in front of 

the shop, J-mending the luggage-carrier with 

an energy I am sure had never gone to the ope¬ 
ration before, a little diligence carrying a young 
lady and an artist in Tam o’ Shan ter—there was 
no mistaking his trade—passed with a great jingling 
of bells. But even it failed to awake Chailly from 
its slumbers. 

The blacksmith’s wife refused to take any money 

for the wire and nail.—However, J-insisting on 

making some payment, the woman told him he 
could give sous to the children. I have never 


seen 






[ I2 4 ] 

seen anything to equal her honesty. When she 
found that two of her neighbour’s little girls had 
come in for a share of the profits, she forced them 
to relinquish it, while she would not allow her 
own children to keep more than two sous a-piece. 
Nothing we could say could alter her resolution, 
and with Spartan-like heroism she seized the extra 
sous and thrust them into J-’s hand. 

After experiencing these things, we rode out on 
the great plain of Barbizon. It would be affecta¬ 
tion to pretend we did not at once think and 



speak of Millet. Was it not partly to see his 
house and country we had come this way ? His 
fields, with here and there scattered grey boulders, 
and in the middle distance, a cluster of trees, 
stretched from either side of the road to the far 
low horizon, the beauty of their monotony being 
but accentuated by the afternoon’s soft cloud- 
shadows. It seemed to us a bright, broad pros¬ 
pect, though I suppose we should have found 
it full of infinite sadness.—There was not much 
pathos in near cabbage-patches glowing and shining 


in 




[ 1*5 ] 


in two o’clock sunlight, and we could not be¬ 
lieve the weariness of the peasants to be quite 
genuine. Their melancholy seemed less hopeless¬ 



ness, than consciousness of their duty to pose as 
pathetic features in the landscape.—Even an old 
woman, a real Millet, with sabots and 
handkerchief turban, and a bundle of 
grass on her back, stopped on her 
homeward way to strike a weary atti¬ 
tude on a stone heap by the wayside 
the minute she saw J-’s sketch¬ 

book.—The peasants of Barbizon 
have not served an apprenticeship 
as models for nothing. They have 
learned to realise their sufferings, and to make the 
most of them.- 

“Now I know,” said J-, putting up his 

sketch-book, “ if I were to tell her to put her arms 
or her legs or head in another position, she would 

say, 






[ I * 6 ] 

say, ‘ Mais non, Monsieur, it was thus I posed 
for Monsieur Millet/ or Monsieur somebody else. 
Bah ! it’s all a fashion ! ” 

—The old woman, disappointed, got up and 
walked onwards, to be speedily out-distanced 
by us. 

But J-, as is his habit when he once “gets 

going,” went on.- 

“ How’s a picture painted here nowadays any 
way? Nothing could be simpler. First you get 
your model;—she’s most probably stood for hun¬ 
dreds of other men, and knows more about the 
business than you do yourself; your master tells 
you how to pose her; you put her in a cabbage- 
patch or kitchen prepared for the purpose, like 
those in Chailly, for example; paint the back¬ 
ground as carefully as you know how, and your 
picture’s made. It’s easier to learn how to paint 
than to find motives for yourself ; so follow as 
closely as possible in other -men’s steps; choose 
the simplest subjects you can; above all, be in 
the fashion. There are as good subjects at home 
as in Barbizon for Americans who would but go 
and look for them.” 

—By this time, fortunately, we were in Barbizon, 
and the necessity of evolving a French sentence 

with which to ask his way brought J-’s lecture 

to 





[ I2 7 ] 

to an end.—There could be no doubt that the 
village was the headquarters for artists. Here and 
there and everywhere, among the low grey gabled 
houses, were studios; and scarcely were we in the 
village street before we found an’ exhibition of 
pictures.—It has been recorded that already Bar- 
bizon’s artistic popularity is waning, and that even 
its secondary lights have deserted it. We were 
convinced of its decline when we saw that several 
of the studios were for rent, and confirmed in this 
conviction by a visit to the Exhibition. It was a 
shade worse than a Royal Academy, and at a first 
glance appeared to be a collection of fireworks. 
On a close examination the fireworks resolved 
themselves into green trees sprawling against 
patches of vivid blue sky, and flaming yellow 
flowers growing in rank luxuriance in low-toned 
plains.—There were one or two Millets, of course; 
but what would Millet himself have said to them ? 
It is only fair to add that a few small unpretending 
canvases were not without merit. 

From what we saw in Barbizon, I do not think 
it improbable that in another generation there will 
not be an artist in the village, and that Millet will 
have been forgotten by the villagers.™Though his 
family still live there, the children of the place 
seem to know nothing of his greatness. The first 

boys 


[ 1*8 ] 

boys of whom we asked the way to the house, 
pointed vaguely down the long winding street, and 
thought, but were not quite sure, we should find it 
if we kept straight on. After we left the Exhibi¬ 
tion, other boys whom we questioned declared 
they had never heard the name of Millet; and 
when we refused to let them off so easily, told 
us we must go back in the very direction from 
which we had come. No, we insisted, it was not 
there.- 

“Ah!” they thought, “Monsieur must mean 
Monsieur Millet le char bonnier” 

—Such is fame at home ! 

Finally, after many explanations on our part, 
and conversation with unseen elders behind a 
garden wall on theirs, a man near by explained 
just where the Mai son Millet was. 

A few steps farther on we reached it. As, 1 
suppose, many other pilgrims have done, we sat a 
while on the shady stone seat opposite. A rather 
abrupt turn just there hid the road as it wound 
towards the forest. But we could look back some 
distance down the long village street, at the low 
houses and high garden walls.---The famous Maison 
Millet , built right on the road, grey, with brown 
moss-grown roof, did not differ from the other 
peasant cottages. Even the one large window, 

extending 



/ 


















[ * 3 ° ] 

extending almost the entire height of the house, 
was scarcely a mark of distinction in studio- 
crowded Barbizon; just as, probably, during Mil¬ 
let’s lifetime, his poverty and troubles, and failure 
to make both ends meet, were matters of course 
among the hard-working villagers.—And yet this 
humble cottage is already better known and 
honoured as a place of pilgrimage in the artistic 
world, than the palaces that crown Campden Hill 
and cluster around Palace Gate, Kensington ; even 
as the works that came from it will be remembered 
when the pictures painted within the palace-studios 
have long since been forgotten.—We did not ask 
to go into the house. I believe visitors are ad¬ 
mitted ; but it seems almost cruel to treat it as 
a mere museum for curious tourists, while the 
Millet family is still in charge. So we rested in 
the pleasant shade, looking over to the unassuming 
grey cottage where one or two plaster-casts showed 
through the window, the branches of a tall tree 
waved over the chimney, and an elder-bush, be¬ 
neath the weight of its berries, bent far over the 
garden wall, on the other side of which Millet so 
often walked and stood to watch the west and the 
setting sun.—No one was to be seen but two or 
three children, who examined the tricycle as they 
talked in whispers. But we could hear near voices 

and 


[ -3i ] 

and the clatter of dishes. And then the wind 
would come in great gusts from over the forest, 
shaking down the leaves on its way, and drowning 
all other noises. 

We felt the great contrast when we went from 



the little house where life was always sad, to Siron’s, 
“ that excellent artist’s barrack, managed upon easy 
principles.”—Its cheerfulness was proclaimed by its 
large sign representing a jolly landlord holding a 
pig’s head on a dish, while a young lady and gen¬ 
tleman, apparently in an ecstasy of content at the 

prospect 



prospect of a good meal, lay prostrate before it, 
one on either side, and an appreciative dog sniffed 
at it from the foreground.---It seemed more eloquent 
in its way than, the sign before the other village inn, 
whereon a young lady sat at her easel, and two or 
three young men peeped over her shoulder, and he 
who painted it for his dinner was no poor artist in 
one sense of the word. 

Often enough at Siron’s, as at the Maison Millet , 
there has been the difficulty of making both, ends 
meet. But at the inn it has been turned into 
comedy rather than tragedy, and if money has not 
been forthcoming at once, Siron has been willing 
to wait, knowing that it would in the end.—Men 
of other professions, if they lived together in com¬ 
munities, as artists often do, could hardly show so 
fair a record. For all the talk and definitions of 
so-called Bohemianism, an artist is never in debt 
longer than he can help.—It would be fortunate 
for tradespeople if the same could be said of all 
men. 

A waiter in a dress-coat, which was certainly not 
what we had come to Barbizon to see, showed us 
into the “high inn-chamber panelled” with sketches, 
where we took great pleasure in noting that the 
best were by Americans.—We next ordered groseille, 
for which it was our privilege to pay double the 

price 


[ *33 ] 

price asked elsewhere. I hope the charges for 
artists living in Barbizon are not the same as 
those for an artist passing through, disguised as a 
tricycler.—But Siron’s, with its elegant waiter and 
prices, and its Exhibition open to the public, was 
not the Siron’s we had expected. We had thought 
to find a true artists’ inn, like certain Venetian and 
Florentine dens we knew of;—we had come instead 
to a show for the tourist.—And indeed all Barbizon, 
with its picture galleries and studios to let, and 
posing peasants, seemed no better than a con¬ 
venient stopping - place, to which drivers from 
Fontainebleau could bring travellers, and allow 
them to spend their francs for the benefit of Bar- 
bizonians.—Thus, from Millet’s misery the people 
have reaped a golden harvest. 

Stranger still is the fact, that the country where 
Millet could see but suffering humanity, with a 
forest or open landscape in harmony with it, is now 
recommended as a place in which to learn mirth 
and vivacious contentment.—Millet’s portion in 
Barbizon was headache and heartache, so that now 
and then, in his despair, he cried out to his friends 
that, physically and morally, he was going down 
hill. Over the way at Siron’s other men stayed on 
in the village, because near the forest they were 
sure of physical and moral good health, air, light, 

perfumes, 




[ r 34 ] 

perfumes, and the shapes of things concording for 

them in happy harmony.- 

“ There is no place,” says Mr. Stevenson, “ where 
the young are more gladly conscious of their youth, 
or the old better contented with their age.” 


In 


IN THE FOREST. 



HE waiter having overcharged us for the 


.-»> groseille , we thought it only fair he should 
give us information for nothing. He told us the 
forest was just around the corner, which we could 
see for ourselves, and he directed us on our way 
with such care that we forgot his directions the 
next minute. 

The forest is still “ horrid and solitary,” as 
Evelyn has it, just as when he rode through it 
and between its “hideous rocks.” We do not 
know to this day in what part we were, nor what 
roads we followed. We made no effort to go out 
of our direct course in search of the placarded 
places which it is the tourist’s duty to visit.----We 
did think something of looking for the rock with 
the plaques set up on it, in memory of Millet and 
Rousseau. In telling us how to find it the waiter’s 
words had been many and explicit. But when we 
tried to recall them we could not; nor were we 
more successful in our endeavours to find the rock 


for 


135 


[ 1 3 6 1 

for ourselves. However, I do not think it mattered 
much. It was enough to know the way was 
beautiful and the road good.—No such perfect 
afternoon had come to us since our departure from 
Calais ; and one reason of its perfection was, that 
our pleasure in the loveliness of the place was so 
great, we cared little or not at all for names and 
famous sights. If we return at some future day to 
Fontainebleau, we shall probably explore its valleys 
and rocks, its groves and thickets. But even were 
we never to go back, we should not wish that one 
ride to have been in any way different. 

We rode for miles, and yet the only monotony 
was in the good road. Now, we passed great 
rocks, some grey and riven, moss and lichens 
clinging to them, and bushes and trees struggling 
from their crevices and growing on their summit; 
others bare and shadeless. Here, stretching from 
boulder to boulder, were deep beds of purple 
heather paled by the sun—the heather on which 
Millet used to love to lie &nd look up to the 
clouds and the blue sky; and there, feathered 
ferns, yellow and autumnal in the open spaces, 
green and fresh in the shade of rocks and trees, 
“ made a luxurious couch more soft than sleep.”— 
Now the way went through the very heart of a pine 
wood ; pine needles instead of heather covered the 

ground, 



I r 37 ] 

ground, and even carpeted the road; a spicy 
fragrance, sweetest of all sweet forest scents, per¬ 
fumed the air; the wind sighed softly through the 
topmost branches, and the tricycle wheeled without 
a sound over the brown carpet, on which shadows 
fell and the sun shone. 


Then the pine scent changed to a rich earthy 
smell, and to the right the pines gave way to 
beeches, tall and slim, growing in groups of two or 
three together, with here and there grassy glades 
leading to dense thickets; on the left a close un¬ 
dergrowth, high enough to shut out the prospect, 

made 



[ ] 

■made .a hedge-like border to the road. And then 
again, on either hand, old moss-grown trees rose to a 


venerable height, their branches' meeting overhead. 

There is something in a forest, as in a cathe¬ 
dral, that makes one quiet. We rode for miles in 

silence. 



silence. Then at last, in the green aisle, enthu¬ 
siasm breaking all bounds- 

“ This is immense ! ” cried J-. 

—And so indeed it was, in more than the 
American sense. 

But even the vast forest of Fontainebleau cannot 
go on for ever.—We were not a little sorry when 
we wheeled out into an open space at the top of a 
long hill, where children were chattering and play¬ 
ing and two nuns were sitting on the grass. But 
we were sorrier when, at the beginning of the coast, 
the brake went all wrong and refused to work. The 
hill was steep. All we could do was to run into a 
bank by the road, when the machine stopped. 


Fontainebleau. 



FONTAINEBLEAU. 


LL you need say of Fontainebleau (in case 



A ^ you are asked) is, that it stands about forty 
miles (south something) from Paris, in the middle 
of a large forest, and that there is something great 


in it. 


Before we went to sleep that night we took 
counsel together, and it came to nought. For we 
determined to be up in the morning with the sun, 
and to devote the day to the forest. Of course we 
overslept ourselves. The sun had been up three 
or four hours when we awoke, though as yet it had 
refused to show itself. A. light cold drizzle was 
falling.- 

“ We’ll go instead,” said J-, over his coffee, 

“ to the Palace.” 

“ I’ll go see any Palace,” quoth I, for I was all 
compliance through every step of the journey. 

We had not a guide-book with us. We could 


40 


not 



not tell which was the Gallery of Francis I., which 
the Court of Diane de Poitiers, which the Court 
des Adieux. But had we stopped to turn over the 
pages of a Baedeker, I believe we should have lost 
our impression of the princely scale with which 
kings in the good old times provided for their 
pleasures.—Court opened into court, one as deso¬ 
late and deserted as another; pavilion succeeded 
pavilion; and the grey walls, with their red brick 
facings and proud roofs, as Ruskin would call 
them, seemed never-ending. There is nothing 
that describes this great pile as well as the saying 
of an Englishman, that Fontainebleau is a re?idez- 
7Jous of chateaux. 

When we walked in the garden, and saw that 
the sun was beginning to shine, and that it was 
a quarter of eleven by the clock in the clock- 
tower— 

“ We had better be off,” said we. 

As we passed the walls of the Palace gardens 
the clock struck the hour. It was not too late. 
We could still go in, listen to the guide, and be 
prepared now to take up above fifty pages with his 
words and our reflections upon them. 

But, courage, gentle reader; in the words of 
our Master, ’tis enough to have thee in our power! 

but 



[ r 4 2 ] 

but to make use of the advantage, which the 
fortune of the pen has now gained over thee, 
would be too much. 

So, put on, my brave travellers, and make the 
best of your way to Nemours. 


Through 





THROUGH A FAIR COUNTRY. 



O Nemours all the way was pleasantness, and 


A all the path was peace. There was nothing 
to note but the beauty and excellence of the road. 
Only once we came to pave. Then, however, as 
it was at the bottom of a hill, it was like to be our 
ruin. Rosin, back-pedalling, and clever steering 
to the side-path saved us. A couple of tramps 
asked if we had not an extra seat to spare. 

As for Nemours, we could go on for ever in its 
praise, we found it so pretty; but for its inhabi¬ 
tants, the less, I think, we say of them the better. 
—At three cafe restaurants—one we passed just as 
we went into the city, two were in its very heart— 
food was refused to us. There was no reason 
given for this refusal. The people were disagree¬ 
able, that was all.—We lunched in true tramp 
fashion, on whatever we could pick up by the way. 
At one end of the town we ate pears, at the other 


cake. 


143 


[ M4 ] 

cake. If our meal was scanty, we at least had all 
out of doors, instead of a close cafe , for dining¬ 
room. 

We rode a little distance by the canal, and then 
went into the town to come quite unexpectedly 
upon its castle, which, with its grim grey walls 
and turrets, was the first real castle we had seen 
in all our journey. But old carts and lumber lay 



familiarly in its courtyard, as if to remind the 
chance visitor of its useless old age.—We liked it 
better from the other side of the river, where all 
belittling details were lost, and we saw the grey 
pile sternly outlined against the sky and softly 
reflected in the water. 

Beyond Nemours the same fine road, like a 
park avenue, went with the poplared river until 

the 


[ 145 ] 


the latter ran off with a great curve across the 
broad green fields, to keep well out of sight until 



it turned back to meet us at Fontenoy. Here 
were two canoeists.—The sun shone on the water, 
but failed in soft shadows on the meadows beyond 



and on the road. Everything was still and at rest 
but the river and ourselves. 


K 


But, 










L J 46 ] 

But, quiet as the country was, there was nothing 
to remind us it was Sunday. Peasants were at 
work. Old women here and there cut grass by 
the wayside, or carried it home in large bundles 
on their backs. In one place cantonniers were 
busy covering the road with broken stones. In 



another we passed travellers footing it over the 
white highway; one who walked barefoot, with 
his boots and his umbrella strapped to his back, 
was singing as he went.—Only once we heard 
church bells. In the little grey stone villages, at 
whose entrance poplars stood for sentinels, there 
were more people about than usual. And at 
Souppes, where we stopped for coffee, the cafe was 
full of men in blouses, playing cards and drinking 
beer. 

In the course of the afternoon we left the 

department 



[ ' M7 ] 


department of the Seine-et-Loire for the Ltriret, 
where the road, though not bad, was not quite so 
good, and where the kilometre-stones no longer 
marked the distance, but were newly whitened, 

looking for all the world, as J-suggested, like 

tombstones of dead kilometres.—Then we came to 



the first vineyard on our route, in which the vines, 
heavy with purple clusters, clung to low poles, with 
none of the grace of the same vines crossing from 
mulberry to mulberry in Italy, or of the hops in 
England.—Up and down the road took us—now 

giving 



[ >48 ] 

giving us a glimpse of an old farm-house on a hill¬ 
side, and then of a far chateau half hidden in the 
trees, until we began to meet many carriages.—A 
few minutes after these signs of city life appeared, 
we were in Montargis. 


Montargis 


MONTARGIS. 


T HE landlady was full of apologies for the 
dulness of the town. The band always 
played on Sunday afternoons on the Place in front 
of her house, she said j but now the troops were 
away for the autumn manoeuvres, and Montargis 
was sad in their absence. We thought, however, 
she might better have apologised for the lateness 
of her dinner-hour.—But it was, after all, fortunate, 
for it so chanced we saw more of Montargis than 
we expected. 

Though little is said about it in guide and other 
books, it is one of the prettiest towns in all France. 
A river, an old church, and a mediaeval castle 
are always elements of picturesqueness, and these 
Montargis has used to the very best advantage.— 
We found the church grey and weather-worn of 
course. 

The castle, closed about with high walls, stood 
gloomily apart, and overlooked the town. A nar¬ 
row hilly street, lined with little houses, led to its 

heavy 


149 


[ *5° ] 

heavy gateway, against and above which leaned the 
poor and shabby roofs of the nearest dwellings. 

But we took greatest pleasure in the river, which 



wandered around and through the town, as if bent 
on seeing as much of city life as possible;—now 
flowing between stone embankments, from which 
men and boys for ever fished and caught nothing, 
while the castle frowned down upon it; now, tired 

already 




















[ J 52 ] 

already of city ways and sights, running peacefully 
between green banks and trees whose branches 
met above; again, crossing the street and making 
its way by old ruinous houses. We stood on a 
near bridge while a funeral passed. Two men 
carried a coffin, adorned with one poor wreath, 
and so small we knew the body of a child lay 
within; for mourners there were half - a - dozen 
women in white caps. The very simplicity of the 
little procession made it the more solemn. At 
its approach voices were hushed and hats lifted. 
And yet, as they went over the bridge, the aco¬ 
lytes and the chanters, even the priestr himself, 

stole a momentary inquiring glance at J-’s 

stockings. 

It was in Montargis the English drowned Joan 
of Arc. My authority is an eminently respectable 
stationer on the right-hand side of the principal 
street as. you enter the town from the north. He 
assured us of the truth of his statement; and as 
he had always lived in Montargis and we were 
strangers, we did not see our way to dispute it. 

In Montargis we heard for the first time the 
story of the lady tricycler, afterwards repeated at 
almost every stage of our journey. The landlady 
served it to us with the dessert.—Only a few days 
before, it seemed, two gentlemen arrived, each 

riding 



[ r 53 ] 


riding a velocipede, and each wearing long stock¬ 
ings and short pantaloons, like Monsieur. - 

Show these gentlemen to No. 14, she said to the 
chambermaid. Take these towels up to ces mes¬ 
sieurs in No. 14, she said to the same chamber¬ 
maid a few minutes later. When the dinner-bell 
rang there came down from No. 14, not two 
gentlemen, but a gentleman and a lady; and, if 
we would believe it, the lady had on a black silk 
dress. And the next morning, my faith, two 
gentlemen rode away ! 

—In the cafe , after dinner, we watched four 
citizens of Montargis gamble recklessly at corks. 
One, an old fat man in a blouse, who stood on 
one leg and waved the other in the air when he 
played, ran great risks with his sous, and usually 
won, to the discomfiture of a small man who hit 

feebly and lost steadily.- 

“ It is that you are wanting in courage, my 
child,” his successful rival kept telling him. 

—The few soldiers left in Montargis were mak¬ 
ing the rounds of the town with great blowing of 
bugle and beating of drum when we went to our 
room in the Hotel de la Poste. 


How 




HOW WE FOUGHT THE WIND FROM 
MONTARGIS TO COSNE. 


F ROM Montargis to Cosne we fought a mighty 
wind. The greater part of the day our 
heads were down, and we were working as one 
never works except for pleasure.--Under these cir¬ 
cumstances we saw little of the country through 
which we passed. We were just conscious of the 
tramps we had seen the day before, now resting 
by the roadside; and of a blue blouse on an old 
boneshaker flying triumphantly with the wind 
down a long hill up which we were painfully 
toiling. 

The long day was marked only by our halts for 
rest. At the first town, but ten kilometres from 
Montargis, we stopped nominally for syrup, but 
really to take breath. As we drank the groseil/e , 
which was bad, the proprietress of the cafe told us 

what we should have seen in Montargis.- 

Bah ! the chateau, that was nothing. But hold ! 

the 


154 



I 








r 







[ 'S6 ] 

the brand-new caoutchouc factory; there was some¬ 
thing. 

—An hour later we dismounted again, to pick 
blackberries from the hedge. And then we went 
doggedly on, pedalling away until we reached the 
next village, many kilometres beyond. There was 
just outside a pretty, shady road, which we remem¬ 
ber gratefully, since on it we had our first bit of 
easy riding. Adjoining was a chateau with high 
walls, over which came the sound of gay music.- 

To whom did it belong ? we asked an old woman 
on the road. 

“To a Mo?isieur who is enormously rich,” she 
said. “ Mats, tout le meme ”—“ But, all the same ” 
—“he is bourgeois / ’ 

The village was just beyond, and in its inn we 
had lunch.—While we were eating, bang went a 
drum on the street, and a bell began to ring. It 
was a pedler, who had drawn up his cart. When 
we strolled out to the street he had collected quite 
a crowd. 

“ Look at these,” he was saying, as he showed 
a package of flannels; “in the town the price is 
three francs. I ask thirty-five sous. I pray you, 
ladies, do me the favour to feel them. Are they not 
soft? But this is the last package I have. And now, 
all those who want a pair, hold up their hands.” 

—There 



[ T 57 ] 

—There was a scramble; more hands than 
could be filled were raised; his assistant took 
down the names of the buyers, and then—the 
pedler produced just such another package from 
his cart.- 

“ Nom de Dieu ! what longness!” he cried, as 
he held up a specimen in front of the nearest 
woman. 

—At this every one laughed.- 

“ But, my children ”— mes enfants, that is what he 
called them—“ we are not here to amuse ourselves.” 

-—And so the sale went on. Every article 
exhibited was the last of the kind until it was 
sold. He knew them in this country here, this 
prince of pedlers told them. They did not like to 
buy dear.—When we turned away he had just sold 
a piece of corduroy—town price, twelve francs; 
pedler’s price, five francs fifty—to an old man who 
went off grinning, his prize under his arms. 

—The villagers were all talking together, but 
above their voices we heard that of the pedler, 
loud and reproachful.- 

“ Que vous Hes bavards id ! ” 

—Reluctantly we returned to work. The wind 
was in no friendlier mood, and we rode, as in the 
morning, with heads down and thoughts fixed 
upon the pedals.—At Briare—you may despatch 

it 





it in a word: ’tis an uninteresting town !—we had 
our first view of the Loire. For the rest of the 
day the river was always on our right; sometimes 
far off, and only indicated by its rows of tall trees; 
sometimes near, a line of grey or silver, as the 
wind drove the clouds above or beyond it.—We 
met the Cafe of the Sun, travelling on wheels. 

We were some little time in Bonny. Every one 
came out to watch J-, as he opened his sketch¬ 

book, and in a minute we were surrounded. 

“Is Monsieur making plans for houses?” asked 
one old woman. 

—But the event of the day was in Neuvy. 
There we found a great crowd in the narrow 
street, and in the midst stood a tricycle. A 
Frenchman in flannel shirt, grey linen, and gaiters, 
with a handkerchief hanging from his hat over his 
neck, at once made his way through the crowd 
and came towards us.—At last we were to have a 
proof of the freemasonry of the wheel. But he 
introduced himself with a circular, and was friendly 
in the interests of the manufacturers for whom he 
travelled. He did not think much of the “ Hum¬ 
ber ; ” its wheels were so small. He knew all the 
English makes, because he had an English brother- 
in-law who lived in Portsmouth. Look at his 
machine, now ; it had a wheel of a pretty height. 
















[ i6 ° ] 

We must try it, as he was sure we should once we 
read the circular, and give up the “ Humber.” 

Our tandem, with its symmetrical parts and 
modest coat of varnish well covered with mud, was 
indeed insignificant compared with the nickel- 
plated glory of his three wheels, no two of which 
were of the same size, the largest being as tall as a 
bicycle.* At all events the people of Neuvy, most 
of whom were armed with circulars, thought so. 
They looked at us, because a meeting of tricyclers 
was not an everyday occurrence in their town, but 
we gathered no crowd of admirers.- 

“ How many kilometres do you make in a 
day ? ” asked the Frenchman. 

j_said that we had left Montargis, and were 

going on to Cosne—seventy kilometres in all. 

“Seventy kilometres! It is too much for 
Madame ” said the Frenchman, with a bow. 

_In my heart I was of the same opinion. But 

I declared the ride to be a mere nothing, and 
almost apologised for not making it longer. 

He rejoiced in the exercise, he declared with 
enthusiasm. It was a little fatiguing sometimes, 
but what would you have? And it seemed that 
his love for the sport occasionally carried him to 

* For the cycler it suffices to say that it was an overgrown 
“ Bayliss & Thomas.” 

the 




[ i6i ] 

the excess of thirty kilometres in a day. At La 
Charite, between Cosne and Moulins, he had met 
two Englishmen who were riding safety bicycles 
with an interpreter. We asked him if he had 
ever ridden in England. He said No; French 
roads were so good, and French country so 
beautiful.- 

“ Ah, Madame ”—with his hand on his heart of 
course—“ I adore the France ! ” 

—Then we shook hands, to the visible delight 
of the lookers-on, and, with another bow, he told 
us we had nothing but great beauty from Neuvy 
to Cosne, a distance of fifteen kilometres.—The 
whole town watched our start, and, I think, in 
our shabbiness we must have served the agent’s 
purpose even better than his circular. 

As we wheeled on we saw his tracks, making a 
zig-zag course along the road, with little credit to 
his steering. And in front of a lonely farm-house 
a small boy at our coming drew a long sigh.- 

“ But here is another ! ” he called to some one 
indoors. 

—The country really was beautiful. But I was 
so tired ! Every turn of the pedals I felt must be 
the last. And the thought that we should reach 
Cosne but to begin the same battle on the morrow, 
did not help to keep up my spirits. In vain I 
l tried 



[ 162 ] 

tried to be sentimental. For the hundredth time 
I admitted to myself that sentiment might do for 
a post-chaise, but was impossible on a tricycle.— 



And all the time J-kept telling me that if I 

did not do my share of the work I should kill 
him. Certainly seventy kilometres against the 
wind were too much for Madame. 


A GOOD SAMARITAN. 


LONG, ugly, stupid street leads to the prin- 



cipal Place of Cosne. Its pave is surely 
the vilest to be found in all the length and 
breadth of France.—When we came into the town 
it was full of slouchy, disorderly soldiers. We 
pushed the tricycle to the Hotel d’Etoile, which 
the commercial gentlemen of St. Just had praised. 
We should forget the miseries of the day over a 
good dinner.—The landlady came to the door and 
looked at us. She had no room, she declared, 
and could do nothing for us. Her house was full 

of officers and gentlemen. J-asked what other 

hotel she would recommend. 

She pointed to an auberge across the street. It 
was small and mean, with soldiers standing in the 
doorway and at the windows. She could not in 
words have said more plainly what she thought 


of us. 


Was there a table d'hote over there ? 


i6 3 


She 



[ i6 4 ] 

She did not know, with an indifferent shrug of 
her shoulders. 

If we could not sleep in the Etoile, could we 
eat in it ? 

“No, that is altogether impossible,” and she 
turned her back upon us and went into the house. 

—I could have cried in my disappointment. 

The landlady of the Grand Cerf received us with 
smiles.- 

Had we both travelled on that one little velo¬ 
cipede ? 

—But J- was in no humour for compli¬ 

ments.— 

Could she give us a room ? 

There was not one in the house, she said; these 
autumn manoeuvres had brought so many people 
to town. She had just that moment given up 
hers to two gentlemen who had telegraphed that 
they would arrive by a late train, and she and 
her daughter must spend the night in a friend’s 
house. 

—She must have seen the despair in our eyes, 
for, before we had time to speak, she added, that 
she would send to a neighbour’s to see what could 
be done for us there. 

Her messenger, however, came back to say there 
was not one room to spare. But suddenly, with 


a 





[ i6 5 ] 

a happy inspiration, the landlady bade us come 
in, and suggested that if we were willing to wait, 
and would be satisfied with makeshifts, she could 
put up two beds in a small dining-room so soon 
as dinner was over.—Makeshifts indeed ! She was 
offering luxuries.- 

In the meantime, since the two gentlemen had not 
arrived, we could use her room to prepare for dinner. 



—Though the Grand Cerf was not the com¬ 
mercial house of Cosne, it was that night full of 
commercial gentlemen, ready for friendly talk. 

After dinner in its cafe J- asked the waiter 

what there was in the town ?- 

“ Mats, Monsieur , there are many officers and 
soldiers.” 


That 






ex- 


L > 66 ] 

That was not what he meant, J 
plained. Was there a castle or a fine church, for 
example ? 

—At this point the commercial gentlemen at the 
nearest table made bold to interfere. There was 
nothing in Cosne, they said, and were for sending 
us off on a castle hunt to Touraine at once. They 
had the map out in a trice, and during the -next 
few minutes sent us flying from one end of it to 
the other.- 

They will give us no rest, thought I. 

—But presently one of the company asked how 
we liked Paris compared to London ?- 

“London is a great town, is it not?” said he, 
looking to us for support, so that we could do no 
less than agree with him. “ But then, if you want 
coffee or something else to drink on the Sunday, 
what is to be done? Syrups are sold in the 
pharmacy, and the pharmacy is closed. The beer¬ 
houses are shut till one, and even after that hour, 
you go in, you are asked what you will have, the 
beer or the brandy is poured out, you drink it, and 
then you go at once. It is always like this, every 
day. You drink and you go.” 

“ But that it is bizarre! ” said a young man 
opposite, who had never been in England. 

“I think well that it is bizarre /” continued the 

other; 





[ i6 7 ] 

other; “ but you do not know what it is to live 
there in a family hotel. No shops are open the 
Sunday, and the landlady must buy everything the 
Saturday. What does she do ? She buys a piece 
of rosbif. She gives it to you hot the Saturday, 
and cold for breakfast, dinner, and supper the 
Sunday; and the butcher, he never brings fresh 
meat the Monday, and you eat your rosbif cold 
again for dinner. And then you have a gooseberry 
tart. My God, how it sticks to your teeth ! It is 
like this one eats in England.” 

“ It is not astonishing,” thought a serious, elderly 
gentleman on his right, “ that the rich English 
come to France to dine.” 

—At an early hour we went to the room which 
the landlady promised should be ours once dinner 
was well over.—The beds were not yet made, 
though mattresses and bedclothes were piled in 
one corner. The landlord and a lady and gentle¬ 
man we had seen at the table d'hote sat by a table. 
They invited us politely to be seated.- 

“ I should like to go to bed,” said I, in the 
language of our country. 

“We cannot send them away,” said J-. 

—And so, making the best of the matter, we 
sat down with them, and talked about travelling 
and Italy and snoring and velocipedes and Mount 

Vesuvius, 



[ 168 ] 

Vesuvius, and, I think, of some other things which 
I have forgotten.— Monsieur and Madame, who had 
voyaged much, also urged a journey to Touraine 

to see the castles.- 

“ Bother the castles,” thought I to myself. 

“Hang ’em,” said J- audibly, but in Ameri¬ 

can. 

—But the landlady, just theft coming in, asked 
if we should like to see our room.- 



“ It is here,” said we. 

“ It is on the other side of the hall,” said the 
landlady, and she led the way without more ado. 
“See the two little iron beds,” she cried on the 
threshold, “ and the tiny toilet table ! Tis like a 
prison cell;” and nothing would please her but 

she 





[ i6 9 ] 

she must bring Monsieur and Madame and her 
husband and daughter to look. 

—In the morning, in her bill, however, it was no 
longer a prison cell, but a best bedchamber. But 
if a Good Samaritan does overcharge you, what 
can you do? 


By 


BY THE LOIRE. 





W E rested so well 
in our little 
iron beds that in the 
morning we took a 
long walk through 
Cosne before we went 
back to work. We 
Y* found it chiefly re¬ 
markable for its high sweep¬ 
ing roofs and striking weather- 
vanes. 

The ride from Cosne was 
very much like that from 
Montargis, only, fortunately, there was less wind, 
and the wide poplared Loire was on our left from 
our start. Between us and it, however, were the 
pleasant fields and meadows through which Mr. 
Evelyn, with Mr. Waller and some other ingenious 
persons, footed it, and shot at birds and other 
fowls, or else sang and composed verses during 

their 


[ J 7 r ] 

their voyage up the river.—Though we never 
dropped into poetry or song, with us, as with 
them, nothing came amiss. Everything was a 
pleasure, from the clouds chasing each other 
lazily above the Loire and occasionally uncover¬ 
ing the sun, showing us how hot the day might 
be, to the old women and little girls in blue skirts 
and sabots, each watching one cow or a couple of 



white turkeys or geese, whom we met at intervals 
all day long; from the seemingly endless kilo¬ 
metres of level white road between poplars to 
the too Short down-grade between vineyards into 
Pouilly. The only incident throughout the morn¬ 
ing was the discovery of two men stealing grapes 
from a vineyard. We took them to be its owners, 
and would have offered to buy their fruit had they 
not at once looked to us for sympathy with a 

friendly 



[ r 72 ] 

friendly smile that showed they had no right to be 
there.—It was just after Pouilly, we passed a little 
solitary inn that facetiously announced on its sign : 
“To-day one pays money; to-morrow, nothing.” 



At noon we climbed into La Charite, though I 
think we might have been spared the climb had 
we followed the road on the river-bank. As it 
was, we entered the town at the upper end, under 
-its old gateway, topped with grey stone figures, 
and had a good view of its massive walls and 
fortifications. Within the ramparts we found a 
winding street descending precipitately towards 
the Loire, a church in ruins, and people with 

absolutely 












[ >74 ] 

absolutely nothing to do. As if glad of an occu¬ 
pation, they gathered around the tricycle and 
examined it with their eyes and hands; and while 



a waiter in a cafe bestirred himself to overcharge 
us, and a man in a cake-shop, with unlooked-for 
energy, sold us his stalest cakes, they even went 
so far as to roll it up and down to test the tyres.— 



Nor was this curious idle crowd to be got rid of 
so long as we were in La Charite, and our stay 
there was not short; for as we followed the wind¬ 
ings 















[ *75 ] 

ings of the street, just as it widened into.a Place 
before turning to take a straight course towards 
the river, we came out upon the old church door¬ 
way, its countless niches empty, or filled with 



headless statues. Grass-grown steps led up to 
it, and one tall tower, with carven decorations 
half effaced, but rows of low arcades uninjured, 
rose at its side from the top of a small house ; 


on 



[ 176 ] 


on its lowest arch was a staring announcement 
of Le Petit Journal. But of church walls, or of 
door to open or close, there was no sign. The 
arched entrance gave admittance into a large court. 

We stopped at the opposite corner, and J-had 

his sketch-book out in a minute, to the evident 
satisfaction of the people. But a woman from a 
near cafe , as idle but more friendly than the rest, 
came over to say it was a pity Monsieur could 
not get a photograph of the ruin; a photograph 

was so much prettier than a drawing. J- 

jumped at this sensible suggestion, and she sent 
him to a notary on the fourth floor of a house in 
a back street. But this gentleman was out; and 
as the photographer of La Charite, apparently, 

was the last person to be applied to, J- had 

to content himself with a sketch after all.---While 
he was at work the same woman, whose only 
duty seemed to be to do us the honours of the 
place, showed me the old church. 

When I went back - was still struggling 

with the sketch, and with small boys who could 
not keep their hands off the machine. Women 
stood around him in a semicircle, passing a baby, 
which they called cher petit chiffon , from one to the 
other, and only leaving space for an inner ring of 
workmen. Before I heard the words of the latter 

I 







M 




















[ i7.« ] 

I knew by their gestures they were discussing the 
famous velocipede with the tall wheels.—We asked 
them about the race won by the Englishman.—It 
was no great thing, one said. The weather had 
been against it, and there was not much of the 
world there. Some people started to come from 
other countries in the cars. But the porters and 
conductors told them there were no races at La 
Charite, and so they went on or back, he was not 
sure which. The Englishman had gone away 
again, he did not know where.—I suppose the 
mistake was natural. Few tourists who travel by 
rail stop at La Charite, though it is a pretty town, 
as Mr. Evelyn says. 

Following the Loire, the sand-banks in its centre 



widening, the green wilderness growing greener 
and wilder, the town on the far hilltop fading 
softly into blue shadow, we came, in the middle of 
the afternoon, to Pougres-les-Eaux, a fashionable 
invalid resort. 

—After this, there was but a short way to go 

by 





[ r 79 ] 

by the river. And though the little safety-wheel 
now worked loose from no possible cause, unless, 
perhaps, because it had not been used once in 
all our ride; and though the rubber fastening in 
the lamp needed attention every few minutes, we 
reached Nevers—entering by the gate where Gerars 
so cunningly played and sang—early enough to 
see the town and the cathedral. 



The 


THE BOURBON NAIS. 


HE next morning when we awoke it was 



A pouring; but, the shower moderating into 
a drizzle, we made an early start after breakfast. 
— Monsieur , the landlord, was distressed when he 
saw both lamp and little wheel tied on with pink 
string. He hoped the velocipede had not been 
injured in his stables.— Madame, in white cap and 
blue ribbons, with her babies at her side, was 
so sorry for me when she heard we were to ride 
all the way to Moulins that day—fifty-three kilo¬ 
metres, Mon Dieu ! 

I felt sorry for myself before the morning was 
over. The road was sticky, the wind and the rain 
—for it rained again.once we were out of the town 
and had turned our backs upon the Loire—were 
in our faces, and the up-grades were loug and 
steep.—In all the villages through which we passed 
people laughed and dogs barked at us.—The trees 
were yellow and autumnal, and the road was 
strewn with leaves. A grey rainy mist hung over 


the 


[ i8i ] 


the fields.—The country was dreary, and in my 
heart I could but rue the day when sentiment sent 
us on this wild journey. My legs and back ached ; 
every now and then I gasped for breath, and all 



the blood in my body seemed to have gone to my 
head, since it was impossible to sit upright in the 
face of such a wind. Truly it was a pitiful plight! 

But all this was changed at St. Pierre, where 
the sun came out, and the road turning, the wind 
was with us. 

Gone were the troubles of the morning, for¬ 
gotten with the first kilometre. And the country 
was as gay and smiling as at an earlier hour it 
had been sad and mournful.—We were travelling 
through “the Bourbonnais, the sweetest part of 
France,” and for the first time since we had left 
Paris we could look to Mr. Sterne for guidance.— 
But it was not for us to see Nature pouring her 
abundance into every one’s lap, and all her children 

rejoicing 


[ i8* ] 

rejoicing as they carried in her clusters, though 
for the Master, in his journey over the same road, 
Music beat time to Labour.—’Tis pretty to write 
about, and there is nothing I should like better 
than to describe here all flesh running and piping, 
fiddling and dancing, to the vintage. But the 
truth is, we saw but one or two small vineyards 
in the Bourbonnais, and the heyday of the vintage 



had not yet come.—With the best will in the 
world our affections would not kindle or fly out 
at the groups before us on the road, not one of 
which was pregnant of adventure. There was 
just its possibility in a little Gipsy encampment 
in a hollow by the roadside, but after my mis¬ 
adventure near Boulogne I fought shy of Gipsies. 

And 




[ i8 3 ] 


And now thaMve hadjgot within the neighbour¬ 


hood w r here Maria lived, and having 
read the story over but the night 
before, it remained so strong in our 
minds, we could not pass one of the 
many little rivers without stopping 
^ to debate, whether it was here 
f Mr. Sterne discovered her,— 


her elbow on her 
lap, and her head 
f leaning on one side 
A within her hand. 
B. And as there were 
many pop- 

id!!] ^ lars b y ever y 

||||'J ' turn of every 
-g stream, this 





was no easy 
matter to de¬ 
cide.— 


“ It must 
be here,” said 


we, when the river, after running under the road, 

danced out in delight. But the next minute-- 

“ No, it is here ! ” we cried, when, having lost 
its way in a thicket, the stream suddenly w r andered 
back to the poplars and the open sunlight. 


In 






[ ^4 ] 

—In this manner we lingered lovingly in the 
sweet Bourbonnais; and it so happened that 
when the cathedral spires of Moulins came in 
sight we had settled upon a dozen resting-places 
for poor Maria, who has long since found her 
last; in fancy had a dozen times wiped her eyes 


with Mr. Sterne, and felt the most indescribable 
emotions within us, and had made a dozen de¬ 
clarations that we were positive we had a soul.-- 
It was a serious tax upon sentiment. But when 

we entered Moulins- 

“At least now,” we said, “there can be no 

doubt 







[ i85 ] 

doubt that just here they walked together, her 



arm within his, and Sylvio following by the 
lengthened string.” 



Moulins. 




MOULINS. 


TV/TOULINS is a stupid town with a very poor 
-*-*-*' hotel and an American bar. It is true 
there is a cathedral, and a castle also. But, for 
one reason or another—perhaps because ’tis so 
monstrous high there was no avoiding taking 
notice of it—we only looked at the clock-tower. 

However, we made a show of interest in the 
large Place in front of the hotel, deciding to our 
own satisfaction that it was the market-place where 
Mr. Sterne stopped to take his last look and last 
farewell of Maria.- 

“ Adieu, poor luckless maiden ! Imbibe the oil 
and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as 
he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy 
wounds. The Being who has twice bruised thee 
can only bind them up for ever.” 

“ And so we have done with Maria,” said J_, 

shutting up the book in a business-like manner. 

The only people we met in Moulins were at the 
table d'hote. 


:86 


One 




One man told tales of gore terrible to hear in 
such peaceful surroundings. After his coming the 
dining-room smelt like a perfumery shop, so that 
we thought he must be in the perfumery line. 
But as he talked he launched us all upon a sea of 
blood. He in fancy fought now with men, now 
with beasts. He defied us to our faces. Give 
him a horse he couldn’t subdue, indeed ! And 
with knit brows and clenched fist he struggled 
again for our benefit with a famous steed, the 

officers in his regiment called un vrai diable. - 

“ I will master it if I pay with my life. The 
blood flows from my ears, my eyes, my nose, my 
mouth! I faint. A man, who sees me fall, cries, 
* There lies a corpse! ’ I am in bed for a week. 
But, Dame , now a child can ride that horse.” 

—His next battle we had the awful pleasure to 
witness was with the landlady. It was in the 
morning. She sat in the court-yard; he brushed 
his hair at an upper window. She had forgotten 
to call him. Here was a pretty state of things; he 
would miss his train. Well, if he did, he would 
come back, and-We lost the rest as he dis¬ 

appeared towards his dressing-table. We thought 
of the mastered horse, and shuddered. But the 

landlady bore it calmly.-- 

Et bien ! what was to be done with a man who, 

* when 





[ i88 ] 

when he was called, turned on his pillow and went 
to sleep again ? she wanted to know. 

—He tore out, his cravat in one hand, his coat 
in the other, scenting the air in his flight.--Ten 
minutes later, as we waited by the railroad for the 
train to pass, we saw him at a carriage window 
adjusting his cravat, and we knew the peace of 
Moulins would not be disturbed that day. 


The 


THE BOURBONNAIS AGAIN. 


T HERE was nothing from which we had 
painted out for ourselves so joyous a riot 
of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage 
through this part of France. But the absence of 
vineyards was an obstacle to the realisation of the 



picture. From Moulins to La Palisse, and indeed 
to La Pacaudiere, we saw not one. Instead there 
was a rich green meadowland, or a desolate plain, 
with here and there a lonely pool. Under the 
hedges women knit as they watched their pigs. 

Donkey-carts 

189 


/ 


[ i9° ] 

Donkey-carts rattled by, huge hay-carts lumbered 
along at snail’s pace, and from the fields came 
voices of peasants at work.—“ Sacred 
name of Thomas !” we heard one 
call to his oxen.—Now and then the 
Allier, with its poplars, showed it¬ 
self in the distance. Far in front 
were low green hills, and beyond 
them rose the pale blue range of 
the Cevennes. 

Three several times we loitered terribly. Once 
at St. Loup, where we ate an omelette. The 
second time at Varennes, where the river, with 
its border of white-capped washerwomen, made a 



pretty picture. The third, by a field where oxen 
were ploughing, and on the farther side of which 
we could see a tiny village with a church steeple 

spiring 



[ *91 ] 

spiring above its cottages. A ploughman, in short 
blue jacket and low wide-brimmed black hat, left 

his plough to come and look at us.- 

“ Dieu! but it’s a fine machine !” he said, after 
he- had walked all around it. And where was it 
made? for in France he knew there were only 
velocipedes with two wheels. He at least had not 
seen the French tricycler. And it must have cost 
a good deal—two hundred francs, for example ? 

“ More than that,” J-- told him. 

“ Name of a dog ! ’twas a big price ! ” But if 
he’d only the money he’d buy one just like it. 
Then he called a friend from a near field.—If it 
was not asking too much, the latter said, would we 
tell him where we came from ? Ah, from America ! 
And was it better there for the poor? Did the 
rich give them work ? When they saw the sketch¬ 
book they pointed to the church and said it would 
be pretty to draw. And were we travelling for 
pleasure? they asked as J- offered them ciga¬ 

rettes, and they in return gave him a light. 

’Twas in the road between Varennes and La 
Palisse, but nearer La Palisse, where there was a 
steep hill to be coasted, that we began to meet a 
great crowd of people;—men in blue and purple 
blouses, wide-brimmed hats, and sabots ; and 
women in sabots and frilled white caps, with fresh 

ribbons 




[ T 92 ] 

ribbons at their necks. A few trudged on by 
themselves, but the greater number led cows, or 
sheep, or calves. Sometimes one man followed 
half-a-dozen cows, sometimes one cow was followed 
by half-a-dozen men.—In donkey-carts women rode 
alone,' the men, whip in hand, walking by their 
side; and in waggons drawn by oxen were young 
pigs, or else an old woman and a refractory calf 
sitting together on the straw.—On footpaths across. 
the fields, or on distant roads, more peasants were 
walking away, cattle at their heels.—The nearer we 
came to the town, the greater was the crowd. The 
worst of it was, the people were surly; not one 
would get out of our way until the last minute, and 
many pretended not to see us coming, though the 
machine, held in by the brake, squeaked a pitiful 
warning. 

Finally, in the street of La Palisse, we could 
hardly get on for the cows and oxen, and donkeys 
and people. 

“’Twas no great thing,” said an old man in 
blouse and sabots of whom we asked what was 
going on. 

“ ’Twas no great thing ! ” repeated a stout manu¬ 
facturer in frock-coat and Derby hat, adding that 
it was merely the yearly fair. A tricycle that stood 
in his front-yard served as introduction. “Tri¬ 
cycling 


cycling is no way to get fat,” he remarked, looking 

critically at J-, and as he was very stout, we 

fancied this was his reason for riding. And what 



time did we make ? It takes a peasant to under¬ 
stand riding for pleasure. He had a friend who 
rode two hundred kilometres in a day, going 
n backwards 







1 J 94 ] 

backwards and forwards between La Palisse and 
Moulins. 

—Now, as we never made any time worth 
bragging about, and as we had a climb of nine¬ 
teen kilometres to St. Martin still before us, we 
waited to hear no more of the feats of French 
champions. 

We left La Palisse, and rode up a narrow pass, 
hills, now bare and rocky, now soft and purple 
with heather, on every side, in company with 
peasants going home from the fair.—.— 

“ Is there a third seat ? ” asked one. 

“ It walks ! ” cried another. 

—The ascent was so gradual and the gradient 
so easy that only once was I forced to get down 
and walk.—But what’s wrong now? The lamp of 
course. Three times did it fall on the road just as 

we were going at good pace. Once J-picked 

it up quietly; next he kicked it and beat it in 
place with a stone; the third time, “Let it lie 
there! ” said he. A peasant stopped to get it, 
examined it, and—put it in his pocket.—The road 
wound slowly up to St. Martin.—La Pacaudiere, 
the next village, was seven kilometres farther on, 
and there was but one short hill to climb on the 
way, a boy told us. And so to La Pacaudiere 
we went. 


In 




[ *95 ] 

In a few minutes we were at the top, and far 
below, a broad valley, w r ell wooded and now- 
bathed in soft evening light, stretched to hills w T e 





knew were the Cevennes w r e must cross on the 
morrow r , no longer blue and indistinct, as in the 
morning, but green and near.—We let the machine 



carry us, flying by pretty sloping orchards and 
meadow’s w T hen the descent was steep, creeping 
between them wh£n it was but slight.—The sun 


was 




[ 196 ] 

was low in the west, and the evening air deliciously 
cool. We had left the peasants many kilometres 
behind, and we had no company, save once when a 
girl in a scarlet cloak walked along a footpath on 
the hillside, singing as she went. 


With 





WITH THE WIND. 

N AME of God ! it is six hours ! ” and a loud 
hammering at the window below wakened 
us with a start, and then we heard shutters banging 
and the wind blowing a blast over the hills. For 
the first time in our journey we were out of bed 

before seven, and the next minute J-’s head 

was out of the window. The trees on the hilltops 
were all bent towards the Cevennes, and as he 
pulled in his head the shutters came crashing after 
him.- 

“ If the road’s right,” cried he, “ we’ll have the 
wind behind us all the way,” and we dressed with 
a will. 

We were off, flying with the hurricane down the 
hillside towards the valley.—A storm had burst 


■97 


over 



[ ] 

over the hills, only to be driven onwards by . the 
wind. As we rode we saw it relinquish one post 
after another. On the nearest hilltop a little white 
village shone in clear sunlight, a bright rainbow 
above it; over the second the clouds were break¬ 
ing, while the third was still shrouded in showers. 
—Before us was greyness, the Cevennes lost in 
blue mist; behind, a country glowing and golden. 
The early morning air was cold, but sweet and 
pure, and almost all the way our feet were on the 
rests, and we had but to enjoy ourselves. For 
another such ride I would willingly spend ten days 
fighting the wind. 

By nine we were in Roanne, a town remarkable for 
nothing but dust and delicious peaches and grapes. 

The road crossed the Loire, and went straight 
through the valley to the Cevennes.—The peasants 
we met were blown about by the wind, turning 
their backs to each strong gust, that almost blinded 
them, but drove us on the faster.—At the very foot 
of Mt. Tarare, closed in' with high hills, was an old 
posting village, with four or five large hotels falling 
to ruin. It was hereabouts a shoe came loose from 
the fore-foot of Mr. Sterne’s thill-horse. But we 
met with no accident, nor, for the sake of senti¬ 
ment, could we invent one.—The road began to 
go over the mountain; and we wound with it, 

between 

























































[ 200 ] 

between high cliffs on one side and an ever-deepen¬ 
ing precipice on the other. We left the river and 
the railroad further and further below, until the 
latter disappeared into a tunnel and the former was 
just indicated by its trees. 

At St. Symphorien we stopped for lunch. At 
the cafe-restaurant we were refused admittance. 
This turned out to be in a measure fortunate, for 
at the hotel we were taken in; and there, as it 
was an old posting-house, the court-yard, with its 
stables and old well, and the enormous kitchen 
hung with shining coppers, were worth looking at. 
Bicycles were always passing that way, the land¬ 
lady assured us. Therefore, it seemed, it was our 
looks, and not the tricycle, that shut the door of 
the cafe in our faces, and I began to wonder how 
we should fare in Lyons.-The landlady, with an 
eye to profit, thought we ate too little, but her 
daughter understood r it was not good to eat too 
much in the middle of the day when you were 
taking exercise. A gentleman on a walking tour 
once came to their hotel for his midday meal, but 
would have only bread and cheese. And yet she 
knew he was a gentleman by the diamond on his 
finger and the louts in his purse.-We thought of 
Mr. Stevenson—it would have been pleasant to 
have him, as well as Mr. Sterne and Mr. Evelyn, 

for 


[ 201 ] 

for fellow-traveller over Mt. Tarare—but at once we 
remembered he wore a silver ring like a pedler; and, 
besides, if you will look on our map you will see 
that, though we were in the Cevennes, we were not 
in the Cevennes made famous by Modestine and 
Camisards.-~The landlady, who liked the sound of 
her own voice, went on to say that we had twelve 
kilometres to climb before we should come to the 
top of the pass, and that a good horse leaving St. 
Symphorien early in the morning might get into 
Lyons by evening. There was small chance, she 
thought, of our reaching that city until the next day. 

But we hurried away to make the best of the 
wind while it lasted.—With every mile the view 
back upon the mountains widened. When we 
looked behind, it was to see a vast mass of hills, 
some green or red, with a touch of autumn, others 
deep purple or grey; over them the clouds, hunted 
by the wind, cast long trailing shadows, and in and 
out and up and up wound the white highway.— 
One 'or two tumbled-down posting hotels and for¬ 
lorn farm-houses, sheltered under friendly hills, 
were scattered by the way. Probably in one of 
these Mr. Sterne sat at his feast of love; in front 
of it, watched the dance in which he beheld Re¬ 
ligion mixing. But they were desolate and deserted. 
I fear, had sentiment sent us walking into them, we 

should 




[ 202 ] 

should have found no honest welcomes, no sweet 
morsels, no delicious draughts.—At this height 
children and stone-breakers were the only beings 
to be seen on Mt. Tarare. 

Not far from a lonely, wind-bent black cross, 
that stood on a high point in the moorland, we 
reached the summit, and looked down and not up 
to the winding road.—When you have gained the 
top of Mt. Tarare you do not come presently into 
Lyons; with all due reverence for our Master’s 
words, you have still a long ride before you.— 
However, the wind now fairly swept the tricycle in 

front of it, as if in haste to bring us into Tarare._ 

The road kept turning and turning in a narrow 
pass. A river made its way, no longer to the 
Loire, but to the Rhone. But we rode so fast, we 
only knew we were flying through this beautiful 
green world. The clear air and cold wind gave 
us new life. We must keep going on and on. 
Rest seemed an evil to be shunned. For that 
afternoon at least we agreed with Mr. Tristram 
Shandy, that so much of motion was so much of 
life and so much of joyand that to stand still or 
go on but slowly is death and the devil. We said 
little, and I, for my part, thought less. 

But at last J could no longer contain him¬ 
self.— 


“ Hang 













“ Hang blue china and the eighteenth century, 
Theocritus and Giotto and Villon, and all the 
whole lot! A ride like this beats them all hol¬ 
low ! ” he broke out, and I plainly saw that his 
thoughts had been more definite than mine. 

Tarare was an ugly town, and in its long narrow 
street stupid people did their best to be run over. 
As we coasted down into it, we had one of those 
bad minutes that will come occasionally to the 

most careful cycler. J-had the brake on, and 

was back-pedalling, but after a many miles’ coast 
a tricycle, heavily loaded like ours, will have it a 
little its own way.—Some women were watching a 
child in front of a house on the farther side of the 
street. They turned to stare at us. The child, a 
little thing, four years old perhaps, ran out directly 
in front of the machine. We were going slowly 
enough, but there was no stopping abruptly at 

such short notice. J- steered suddenly and 

swiftly to the left; the large wheel grazed the 
child’s dress in passing. It was just saved, and 
that was all.—The women, who alone were to 
blame, ran as if they would fall upon us.- 

“ Name of names ! Dog ! Pig ! Name of God ! ” 
cried they in chorus. 

“ Accidente ! Maladetta ! Bruta ! ” answered 

J-. And this showed how great the strain 

had 







[ 2 °5 ] 

had been. In a foreign land, in moments of in¬ 
tense excitement, he always bursts out in the 
wrong language. But the child was not hurt, and 
that was the great matter. We did not wait to 
hear their curses to the end. 

We had another bad quarter of a minute later in 
the afternoon, when we were climbing a hill out¬ 
side L’Abresle. Two boys had carried a bone¬ 
shaker up -among the poplars. As they saw us 
one jumped on, and with legs outstretched, sailed 
down upon us. He had absolutely no control 
over his machine, which, left to its own devices, 
made straight for ours. And all the time he and 
his companion yelled like young demons.—There 
was no time to get out of his way, and I do not 
care to think what might have been if, when within 
a few feet of the tandem, the machine had not 
darted off sideways and suddenly collapsed, after 
the wonderful manner of bone-shakers, and brought 
him to the ground. 


- - (I leave this void space that the 

reader may swear into it any oath he is most un¬ 
accustomed to. If ever J-swore a whole oath 

into a vacancy in his life I think it was into that.) 
—He was for getting down and thrashing the 

boy 








[ 206 ] 

boy for his folly. But I was all for peace, and 
fortunately winning the day, we climbed on, while 
the cause of the trouble still sat in the road mixed 
up with his bone-shaker, muttering between his 
teeth something about, “ Oh, if it were only not 
for Madame /” 

All afternoon we rode up and down, through 
valleys, by running streams, over an intricate hill 
country, with here and there a glimpse of distant 
mountains, to fill us with hope of the Alps, meet¬ 
ing, to our surprise, the railroad at the highest 
point; and in and out of little villages, which, 
with their white houses and red-tiled roofs, were 
more Italian than French in appearance. 

I do not think we rested once during that long 
afternoon. But after a hundred kilometres I must 
confess we began to lose our first freshness. There 
were so many long up-grades, the roads were not 
so good, the peasants were disagreeable, trying to 
run us down, or else stupid, refusing to answer our 
questions ; and the sign-posts and kilometre-stones 
were all wrong. We were so near, it seemed foolish 
not to push on to Lyons. For once we would 
make a record, and beat the good horse from St. 
Symphorien. But it was hard work the last part 
of the ride.—And when we came to the suburbs 
of the city the people laughed and stared, and 

screamed 



‘ r < 











[ 208 ] 

screamed after us, as if they had been Londoners. 
We had their laughter, pave , carts, and street cars 
the rest of the way; and when we crossed the 
river, “ I had better get down,” said I; and so I 

walked into Lyons, J-- on the tricycle moving 

slowly before me over the pave and between the 
carts.—No one could or would direct us to the 
hotel ; policemen were helpless when we appealed 

to them ; but just as J-was opening his mouth 

to give them to the devil—’tis Mr. Sterne’s expres¬ 
sion, not mine or J ’s—a small boy stepped 

nimbly across the street and pointed around the 
corner to the Hotel des Negotiants. 

That evening in the cafe we read in the paper 
that the wind had been blowing sixty-six kilometres 
an hour. 



Lyons. 







LYONS. 


T O those who call vexations vexations , as 
knowing what they are, there could not 
be a greater than to be the best part of a day at 
Lyons, the most opulent and flourishing city in 
France. It has an old cathedral, a castle on a 
hillside, ruins if I be not mistaken, two rivers, and 
I know not what besides. Baedeker devotes pages 
to it. Moreover, there is associated with it a 
story, that, to quote Mr. Tristram Shandy, who 
tells it, affords more pabulum to the brain than 
all the Frusts and Crusts and Rusts of anti¬ 
quity, which travellers can cook up for it. You 
remember the tale? It is that of fond lovers, 
cruelly separated.- 


o 


Amandus— 



[ 21 ° ] 

Amandus—He, 

Amanda—She, 

each ignorant of the other’s course ; 

He—east, 

She—west; 

and finally, to cut it short, after long years of wan¬ 
dering for the one, imprisonment for the other, 
both coming unexpectedly at the same moment of 
the night, though by different ways, to the gate of 
Lyons, their native city, and each in well-known 
accents calling out aloud- 

Is Amandus I ... .. 

1 > still alive ? 

Is my Amanda ) 

then, flying into each other’s arms, and both falling 
down dead for joy, to be buried in the tomb upon 
which Mr. Shandy had a tear ready to drop. But, 
alas! when he came—there was no tomb to drop 
it upon ! 

We expected letters, and began the day by a 
visit to the Post Office, where the clerk, after the 
manner of his kind in all countries, received and 
dismissed us with contemptuous incivility.—To be 
rid of all business, we next went to the Credit 
Lyonnois to have some Bank of England notes 
changed for French gold. But the cashier looked 

at 



[ 211 1 

at them and us with distrust, and would have 
nothing to do with our money.-- 

Where was our reference ? he asked. 

This w r as more than enough to put us in ill- 

humour. But J-having looked up in his C. 

T. C. Handbook the address of the agent for cycle 
repairs in Lyons, and his place being found with 
difficulty, we walked in, under a pretext of asking 
about the road to Vienne, but really, I think, in 
search of sympathy. 

We introduced ourselves as fellow-cyclers who 
had ridden all the way from Calais. But the 
agent was calmly indifferent, and scarcely civil.— 
Where should we find the national road to Vienne ? 
—We had but to follow the Rhone, on the oppo¬ 
site bank, and he bowed us towards the door. 
But just as we were going, he stopped us to ask 

what time we could make. J-told him that 

yesterday we had come from La Pacaudiere, a ride 
of one hundred and twenty odd kilometres, which 
w r as perfectly true. But that, it appeared, was no¬ 
thing. The agent could not bear to be outdone, 
and so, Of course, had a friend who could ride 
four hundred kilometres in twenty-eight hours.— 

Then J-, to my surprise, proceeded to tell him 

of the wonderful records we had never made. But 
the agent always had a friend who could beat us 

by 



[ 212 ] 

by at least a minute or a kilometre. In their ex¬ 
citement each was bent on breaking the other’s 
record, not of cycling, but of lying. 

At the end J-had worked himself up to 

quite a frenzy. When we were alone, and I took 
him to task, he was not at all repentant, but swore 
he was tired of such nonsense, and would outlie 
the fellows every time. 

It was now noon, and we had already seen more 
than we wanted of Lyons. We went back to the 
hotel, strapped the bag on the tricycle, and with¬ 
out giving another thought to the cathedral and 
the curiosities we had not visited, we sallied forth 
to follow the Rhone, determined never to set foot 
in this flourishing city again. 


The 


\ 




THE AUTUMN MANOEUVRES. 
ETER Lyons, adieu to all rapid movement! 



Tl ’Tis a journey of caution; and it fares 
better with sentiments not to be in a hurry with 


them. 


Before we were out of the city limits we lost our 
way, and went wandering through lanes, hunting 
for a road by the river. One led us to a blank 
wall, another to a stone pile; and when we con¬ 
sulted passers-by they sent us back towards the 
town, and into a broad street running through 
endless ugly suburbs, and far out of sight of the 
Rhone.—So much for a fellow-cycler’s directions. 

In the open country the national road was bad 
and full of stones. It is only fair to add that the 
agent in Lyons had said we should find little good 
riding between Lyons and Vienne. The wind, 
tired with its efforts of yesterday, had died away, 
and it was warm and close on level and hill.—And 
we were as changed as the country and weather! 
Gone with the wind and good roads and fair land¬ 


scape 


213 


[ 2 x 4 ] 

scape was the joy of motion ! Our force was spent, 
our spirit exhausted with the shortest climb.—In 
the first village we stopped for groseille and to rest. 
We sat at a little table in front of the cafe, silent 
and melancholy ; and when the landlady came out 





and asked if my seat was on the luggage carrier, 
and if, perhaps, we could reach Vienne by evening 
(the distance from Lyons being twenty-seven kilo¬ 
metres), we were too weary to be amused. In 
parting she told us we had still four hills to cross ; 

she 


[ 2I S ] 

she ought rather to have said a dozen.—The whole 
afternoon we toiled up long ascents. 

In near hills and valleys the French army was 
out manoeuvring. We could hear the cannon and 
guns, and see clouds of smoke before we came 
in sight of the battle.—We had glimpses, too, of 
reserves entrenched behind hillocks and wooded 
spaces, and once we almost routed a detachment 
of cavalry stationed by the roadside. Scouts and 
officers on horseback tore by; soldiers hurried 
through the streets of a narrow hilly village.—What 
with the noise and the troops, the road was lively 
enough. And presently, from a high hilltop, we 
overlooked the field of action. A fort was being 
stormed; as we stopped, a new detachment of the 
enemy charged it. They marched in good order 
over a ploughed field, and then across green pas¬ 
tures. Both sides kept up a heavy firing.- 

“The French army amuses itself down there,” 
said a grinning peasant, who watched with us. 

—Indeed all the peasants seemed but little 
edified by the fighting. Many ignored it. Others 
laughed, as if it had been a farce played for their 
amusement.- 

“ It is good there are no balls,” remarked an 
old cynic when we drew up to have a second look ; 
“if there were, then would it be Sauve quipent /” 

At 




[ 216 ] 

At last guns and smoke were out of sight and 
hearing. But the road still ran between dry fields 
and over many hills, and the peasants were dis¬ 
agreeable. It seemed in keeping with the day’s 
experiences that the long hill leading down into 
Vienne should be so steep that I had to get off 
the machine and walk. We were both in a fine 

temper, J-, moreover, complaining of feeling 

ill, by the time we were fairly in the city.—Here, a 
priest and his friend, for fear we might not under¬ 
stand their directions, politely came with us from 
the river, through twisting streets, to the hotel. I 
do not believe we thanked them with half enough 
warmth. ’Twas the first, and I wish it had been 
the last, civility shown us that day. 


Vienne. 








VIENNE. 


S O now we were at the ancient city of Vienne 
as early as three o’clock, and J- too ex¬ 

hausted to ride farther that afternoon. We never 
yet went on a long trip, as everybody must or 

ought to know by this time, that J-did not 

break down at least once on the way. The matter 
threatened to be serious; but after half-amhour 
or more of despair—for we thought now surely we 
are done with sentiment—we went out in search 
of food, the first and most natural medicine that 
suggested itself, as in our haste to be out of Lyons 
we had taken but a meagre lunch.—It is a pecu¬ 
liarity of Vienne, a town of cafes , that all its 
restaurants are on the, same street. When we 
were about giving up the search, we, by chance, 
turned in the right direction, and found more than 
a dozen in a row. We chose one that looked 

quiet, and there J--ate a bowl of soup and 

drank a glass of gomme , and at once was himself 
again.—I have mentioned this affair, slight as it 


2 l 3 


was, 





was, because I think the merits of gomme but little 
known, and therefore hope the knowledge may be 
of use to other sentimental travellers in similar 
straits. Besides, it is the rule with cyclers to 
recommend the most disagreeable drinks that can 
be imagined, and I believe there is nothing viler 
than gomme. The truth is, we ordered it by 
mistake for another syrup the name of which 
we did not know. And now let there be an end 
of it. 

It was fortunate J-recovered: there are 

few pleasanter cities for an afternoon ramble than 
Vienne. The hills look down from round about 
the town, here and there a grey castle or white 
farm-house on their vine-clad slopes, and from the 
new broad boulevard or old narrow streets you 
have near and distant views of the rapid Rhone. 
Now you come out on the brown crumbling cathe¬ 
dral, raised aloft and towering above the houses, 
grass growing on the high flight of stone steps 
leading to its richly sculptured portals, bricks in 
places keeping together its ruinous walls, time’s 
traces on its statues and gargoyles. Now, you 
wander into a clean, quiet Place, from the centre 
of which a Roman temple, in almost perfect pre¬ 
servation, frowns a disdainful reproach upon the 
frivolous cafes and confectioners, the plebeian 

stores 


[ 220 ] 

stores and lodgings, that surround it. And again, 
you follow - a dark winding alley under a fine 
Roman gateway, and find yourself in an old 
amphitheatre, houses built into its walls and 
arches, and windows full of flowers and clothes 
drying in the sun. 



On the whole, I believe the pleasantest place 
in all Vienne to be the quai.— The sun had set 
behind the opposite hills when we returned to it 
after our walk. A bell jingled close to our ears, 
and behold, a tricycler, ih spotless linen on a 
shining nickel-plated machine, came that way. 

But J-stopped him, and consulted him about 

the road to Rives ; and he, as polite as his machine 
was elegant, gave us minute directions.--Beware of 
the road to the left, it is bad and mountainous; 
keep to the right in leaving the town, then you 

will 



[ 221 ] 


will have it good and level;—this was the gist of 
his advice. And then he too must know what 
time we made, and “Ah, no great thing!” was 

his verdict upon the bravest feats J- could 

invent, and then he rode on into the twilight. 


The 



THE FEAST OF APPLES. 


I DO not know why it was, but no sooner had 
we gone from Vienne by the road to the 
right, than we distrusted the directions of the 
tricycler we had met the night before. We asked 
our way of every peasant we saw. Many stared 
for answer. Therefore, when others, in a vile 
patois, declared the road we were on would take 
us to Chatonnay and Rives, but that it would be 
shorter to turn back and start from the other 
end of Vienne, we foolishly set this advice down 
to the score of stupidity, and rode on.—But, in¬ 
deed, in no part of France through which we had 
ridden were the people so ill-natured and stolid. 
They are certainly the Alpine-bearish Burgundians 
Ruskin calls them.—In the valley on the other 
side of the hills we came to a place where four 
roads met. A woman watched one cow close by. 
—Would she tell us which road we must follow? 

asked J- politely.—She never even raised her 

head. He shouted and shouted, but it was not 

until 


222 



[ 22 3 1 

until he began to call her names, after the French 
fashion, that she looked at us.—We could take 
whichever we wanted, she answered, and with that 
she walked away with her cow. 



Fortunately there was a little village two or three 
kilometres farther on. A few well-dressed women 
and children were going to church, for it was Sun¬ 
day. But the men of the commune stood around a 
cafe door. They assured us, we were on the wrong- 

road, 



[ 22 4 ] 

road, and had come kilometres out of our way, 
but that all we could do was to go on to a place 
called Lafayette. There we should find a high¬ 
way that would eventually lead us into the Route 
Nationale .--This was not encouraging. It was op¬ 
pressively hot in the shadeless valley. The road 
was bad, full of stones and ugly ruts and ridges, 
and before long degenerated into a mere unused 
cow-path, overgrown with grass, crossing the fields. 
We tried to ride; we tried to walk, pushing the 

machine. Both were equally hard work.- 

“ To a Frenchman any road’s good so he don’t 

have to climb a hill,” said J-, in a rage. “ If 

I only had that fellow here ! ” 

—We were walking at the moment.-- 

“ Get on ! ” he cried, and I did. 

—We bumped silently over the ruts.- 

“ Get off! ” he ordered presently, and meekly 
I obeyed, for indeed I was beginning to be 
alarmed. 

—He took the machine by the handle-bars and 
shook it hard.—— 

“You’ll break it! ” cried I. 

“I don’t care if I do,” growled he, and he 
gave it another shake. 

—But at this crisis two women coming towards 
us, he inquired of them, with as good grace as he 

could 





[ 22 5 ] 

could command, the distance to Lafayette. They 
stood still and laughed aloud. He repeated his 
question; they laughed the louder. The third 
time he asked, they pointed to a solitary farm¬ 
house standing in the fields. He paused. I saw 
he was mentally pulling himself together, and I 
wished the women were out of harm’s way.- 

“ Nous — sommes — ici — dans — un — nation — de — 
bites — de — fous ! ” he broke out, this time in 
French, a pause between each word. “ Oui — tons 
— bites — tons — fous — Fous — fous—aussi ! ” 

—The women turned and ran. 

I think they were right about Lafayette after all. 
In a few minutes we came to a good road. An 
auberge stood to one side, and a man at once 
approached us.- 

We must come in, he said; it was a ftte 
day, and we should be served with whatever we 
wanted. 

But J- was not to be so easily rid of his 

troubles.- 

“ Un — Franfais — dans — Vienne ,” he explained : 
“ nous — a — envoyer — Id — has. — 11 — est—fou /” 

“Yes, yes!” said the man soothingly; but, all 
the same, as it was a feast day, it seemed we must 
come to the auberge. 

The feast consisted of boiled beef and rabbit; 

p the 






[ 226 ] 

the holiday-makers, of a few peasants eating at 
rough wooden tables in front of the inn, a father 
and his four small sons drinking wine together 
and solemnly clinking glasses, and one man 
shooting with a cross-bow at diminutive Aunt 
Sallies.—We made a fair lunch, though when 
we refused wine the landlady asked, with dis¬ 
gust— 

“ Then you do not mean to eat ? ” 

We sat with the peasants, who fell into conver¬ 
sation with us. When they heard how we had 
come from Vienne, they thought we must have 
had commerce in the villages in the valley to take 

such a route. And though J-again explained 

about that fool in Vienne , they would have it we 
were pedlers. 

When we set out, our first friend was at hand 
to ask if we had had all we wanted. The next 
day we saw by a printed notice that Sunday had 
been the Feast of Apples —a day whereon the 
people were begged to show every kindness to 
travellers through their land; and then we under¬ 
stood his politeness. .. 

Perhaps a kilometre or two from the auberge 
we turned into the Grenoble road, and from that 
time onward there were but few sign-posts and 
the cross-roads were many.—It promised to be a 

day 






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day of misfortunes. The country was hilly; we 
were always working up, with only occasional short 
coasts down, now through villages on the hillside, 
and now between steep wooded banks.—Once, 
when, sore perplexed to know which way to go, 
we were pedalling slowly in indecision, the road 
made a sudden curve, the banks fell on either 
• side, and there at last they were, the long blue 
ranges, and, away beyond, one snow-crowned peak 
shining in sunlight.—After that, they—the delec¬ 
table mountains of our Sentimental Journey—were 
always hopefully before us. 

—Just outside St. Jean Bournay we came upon 
the right road from Vienne, but twenty-two kilo¬ 
metres from that city, we saw on the kilometre- 
stone, and we had already ridden forty-four ! 

—At the other end of the town we passed a 
theatre, a large canvas tent with two or three 
travelling vans close by. A crowd had gathered 
around it, and were staring with interest at a 
printed notice hung in front. It was an old 
American poster, picked up, who knows where ? 
with the name of the play in French above and 
below it. 

A woman in the crowd explained that a negro 
was the slave of a planter.- 

“ Or a Prussian, perhaps ? ” a man suggested. 

“ No; 


[ 229 ] 

“ No; to be a negro, that is not to be a Prus¬ 
sian,” argued the woman.* 



After La C6te St. Andre the road ran between 
low walnut-trees.—Now and then the monotony 
of their endless lines was broken by a small vil¬ 
lage, where men played bowls; and now and then 
the road was lively with well-dressed people, who 
jumped as the machine wheeled past them.- 

“ But that it frightened me, for example ! ” cried 
one. 

But later a peasant called out—“ O malheur , la 
femme en avant / ” 

—By-and-by the way grew lonelier, and we had 

* We have never ceased regretting that we did not go to 
see Crasmagne en Amirique. 


for 




[ 230 ] 

for company the cows, great white stupid crea¬ 
tures, going home from pasture, and their drivers 
stupid as they, who roused themselves but to swear 
by the name of God, or to call out, “Thou beast 
of a pig! ” to a cow frightened into the fields by 
the tricycle.—At last we turned into a broad road, 
where the walnuts gave place to poplars, and the 
level came to an end. At the foot of a long steep 
straight hill was Rives, deep down in a narrow 
valley. 


Rives. 





V 

wi 

-3 

L v° 

je >s 

_ 'Ll’ 

6 Q 












RIVES. 


T the Hotel de la Poste a middle-aged fille- 



l\. de-chambre , in a white cap—another Alpine- 
bearish Burgundian—looked upon us with such 
disfavour we could scarce persuade her to show 
us our room. 

The dining-room was full of noisy men in 
blouses and big hats. No place was left for us 
at the long table, that stretched the entire length 
of the room; and we sat together in a corner.— 
The dinner was excellent. But the enemy in 
white cap was down upon us in a minute, and 
gave us no peace. She raised a window upon 
our backs, and as often as we shut it was at our 
side to open it again. We had the worst of it, 
for with the salad we seized our wine and napkins 
and retreated to the opposite corner, giving up 
our table to four men, who took off their blouses 
and coats—but not their hats—for their greater 
comfort, as they sat down and themselves opened 


the 


232 


[ 2 33 ] 

the window. What would have been, pneu¬ 
monia, or colds in the heads for us, was health 
for them. 

But there was no rest for us at Rives.—We went 
to bed early, but until late at night men in heavy 
boots tramped up and down the narrow carpetless 
hall outside our door, and in and out the room 
overhead. They began again at four o’clock in 
the morning.—As there was no more sleep to be 
had,- 

“We might as well make an early start,” said 
J-, and we were downstairs by six. 



—When we had had our coffee I returned to 

our room to pack the bag, and J- went to 

the stable to get the tricycle. Presently he came 
up and joined me.—I had not expected him so 
soon, and - was not quite ready.'- 


Something 








[ 2 34 1 

“Something has happened,” said I as soon as I 
looked at him, but still folding flannels. 

“ We cannot go on,” said he. 

“Why?” cried I, jumping up and dropping 
the flannels. 

“ I'll tell you,” said he; “because”- 



APPENDIX 


OUR ROUTE.—FROM CALAIS TO MODANE. 


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ROUTE 9. 

FROM PARIS TO LYONS, BY WAY OF DIJON. (See also Route i.) 


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ROUTE 11. 

FROM CHAMBERY (see Route i) TO GENEVA. 


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[ 2 5 ° ] 

The above routes cover about the pleasantest and 
most interesting touring ground in France. But good 
roads exist all over the south. For instance, from 
Bordeaux, the road up the Garonne to Toulouse, 250 
kilometres, is excellent, though quite flat; but in the 
summer time it is apt to be very hot, and the surface 
loose and sandy. 

From this road excursions may be made all through 
the Pyrenees, which can be entered either at Luchon 
or at Pau. It is preferable, however, when touring 
through the Pyrenees, to train to St. Gaudens, from 
which place Bagnieres de Luchon (Hotel de France) 
is 48 kilometres distant. 


Towns. 

Distance in 
Kilometres. 

Hotels. 

Luchon 



Montrejeau . . . | 

37 

Ld Eclair. 

Bagnieres de Bigorre . ' 

42 


Lourdes .... 

20 


Nay . 

18 


Pau ...... 

17 

Du Coitimerce. 


Excursions may be made all over this district, which 
is extremely interesting. Though very hilly, it possesses 
magnificent roads. From Pau to Dax the route is by 


Towns. 

Distance in 
Kilometres. 

Hotels. 

Orthez .... 

40 

Des Pyrenees. 

Pomarez .... 

16 

Dax .... 

21 

De la Paix. 


F rom 




























[ 2 5 ' ] 

From Castets, near Dax, one strikes the main high¬ 
road from Bordeaux to Bayonne, about 200 kilometres in 
distance; it traverses Les Landes, and is worth taking. 

From St. Gaudens to Carcassonne (Hotel Bernard), 
170 kilometres, the road begins by being hilly, but you 
gradually leave the region of the Pyrenees, and it be¬ 
comes easier riding. But long hills are to be found 
all about here. Long distances have to be made 
between towns, and, unless one has plenty of time, this 
trip on to Narbonne, Cette, and Montpellier, is hardly 
to be recommended. It is also liable frequently to 
great heat and much sand. 

From Toulouse to Albi (Hotel du Nord), 76 kilo¬ 
metres, the road is good ; and from Albi excursions 
can be made all over the marvellous country of the 
Tarn Gorges, and through the-Cevennes. But travel¬ 
ling in this section requires comparatively good know¬ 
ledge of French, and also of geography ; though the 
roads are good, the towns are few, and long distances 
must be made each day. 

The highroad from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand, 400 
kilometres, turning off Route 1 at Moulins, conducts 
one to the heart of Auvergne and the volcanic country. 
Continuing from Clermont-Ferrand to Issoire, and 
thence to Brioude, one may turn to the left for St. 
Flour, and thence to Rodez and Albi, or to the right 
for La Chaise-Dieu and Le Puy, proceeding from this 
place either down the Loire and again to Moulins, or 
crossing over to Lyons. 


Poitiers 


[ 2 52 ] 

Poitiers is connected by main road with Limoges, 
and from that town St. Flour may be reached. Fol¬ 
lowing on, by Mende and Florae, one will come to 
Allier, and next Nunes, for Arles. 

Nearly all these roads, however, are over high moun¬ 
tain passes, and though the scenery is well worth 
seeing, and though the enormous coasts, sometimes 
io miles long, make up for the enormous hills that 
have to be walked, one must expect very strong 
winds and bad weather, even in the middle of 
summer. 

To the north and east of Paris some good riding is 
to be had, and the scenery is almost always delightful, 
but there is a vast amount of pave. This may be 
usually avoided by taking to the byroads, information 
about which, now that cycling has become so popular, 
can often be had from cycle agents, or efficient re¬ 
pairers, who are to be found in every town. 

A most interesting tour would be Amiens, Laon, 
Soissons, Rheims and the champagne country, Troyes, 
whence return could be made to Paris, or the journey 
continued by way of Chdlons-sur-Marne, Dijon to 
Geneva. 

The Vosges district, too, is worth visiting, and end¬ 
less tours may be made from Nancy as a centre. 
Provence also, the Riviera, and the Cornice Road, 
afford some of the most delightful wheeling to be had 
in the country. But tourists, with time enough to 
make these long excursions, will prefer doubtless to 

map 


[ 2 53 ] 

map their routes out for themselves by the aid of the 
C.T.C. Road Books and Baroncelli’s Guides. 

There is only one portion of the country which 
every one who cares for the pleasures of cycling should 
be advised to avoid, and that is the vast and dreary 
plain stretching from Paris to Le Mans, and from 
Rouen to Orleans. In planning a tour through France 
by routes other than those here given or suggested, 
Baedeker’s or Murray’s guide-books should be used 
for general information, supplemented, for road infor¬ 
mation, by the GeographieJoanne for each department 
through which one is passing. They can be purchased 
for 50 centimes, or 1 franc 25 centimes, in every book¬ 
shop in Frange. They are quite reliable enough, and 
much more convenient to carry than any other maps 
published in the country. 

The Cyclists’ Touring Club is at present engaged in 
bringing out a revised edition of its French Road Book. 
So far, however, Baroncelli’s Guides are the best cycle 
routes published. His address is 18 Rue Roquepine, 
Paris. The Sketch Routes , published by the Veloce 
Sport (English address, Paul Hardy, 27 Alfred Place, 
Russell Square), are veiy useful if they happen to take 
you in the direction you wish to go. The Cyclists’ 
Touring Club Road Books\ only sold to members, con¬ 
tain a vast amount of useful information unfortunately 
not well arranged. Membership in this club, which 
only costs half-a-crown a year, is desirable for tourists 
on the Continent. 


The 


[ 254 ] 

The Customs regulations in France are not at all 
stringent, and tourists are now almost invariably 
allowed free entry with their machines at the chief 
ports, provided they can prove themselves to be 
tourists, and possess a sufficient knowledge of the 
French language to explain the fact intelligibly. Other¬ 
wise, a deposit of fifty or more francs is demanded-; 
but if a receipt be obtained, the amount, with a very 
trifling deduction, will be returned if the tourist leaves 
the country within six months. If one, however, pro¬ 
poses to go for a few days into Germany, Belgium, or 
Spain, it is well to obtain a Passcivant DescriptiJ.\ a 
description of the machine, which costs a penny, and 
will permit the bearer to return without any other 
formalities than showing this document on again pass¬ 
ing the Customs officers. It can be obtained at the 
frontier stations by which one leaves the country, and 
is good at any other point of entry. A passport is of 
very little use, but some papers of identification, if 
possible French, may be indispensable for any one who 
sketches or photographs. Sketching and photograph¬ 
ing are prohibited within a circle of io kilometres of 
any fortifications. 

French hotels are usually reasonable and excellent. 
When they are extortionate,, they are nearly always bad. 

Parcels Post is about as unreliable as in any other 
part of the world. Clothes forwarded in this way are 
subject to the same uncertainty of delivery, as regards 
time, as in England. 


Suggestions 


[ 2 55 ] 

Suggestions as to distances to be ridden, clothes 
to be worn, and so on, are quite unnecessary, since 
any one who has toured at all is usually a law unto 
himself in these matters, and will accept no advice. 

But as the roads are the best in the world, the 
people the most polite, unless a head wind catches 
him, the tourist should have a delightful time if he 
keeps to the right of the road, and provides himself 
with a lamp and a bell. 




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